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TWO 



SHAKESPEARE EXAMINATIONS 



,VITH SOME 



REMARKS ON- 



THE OLASS-EOOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEAEE. 



BY 



WILLIAM TAYLOR THOM, ALA., 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATLKE IN rfOLLIXS INSTITUTE, VIRGINLA. 



^.-^v OF r 






BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN, HEATH, & CO. 

1883. 



^'^ 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

WILLIAM TAYLOR THOM, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



J. S. Gushing & Co., Printers, Boston. 



To THOSE TO WHOM IT IS DUE, TO MY PUPILS, I AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATE THEIR OWN WORK AND WHATEVER IS OF WORTH IN 
MINE: 

TO 

* Miss N. B. BOWMAN, 

Miss HANNAH WILSON, 

AND ESPECIALLY TO HER WHO WAS 

Miss EMMA A. MERTINS, 

AND WHO IS MY DEAREST FRIEND. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 7 

Hamlet Prize Examination 15 

Letter of F. J. Furnivall, Esq 60 

Macbeth Prize Examination 63 

Gertrude, Queen of Denmark 105 

Class Examination in Hamlet, 18S1 115 

Class-Room Study of Shakespeare 119 

Cordelia 153 



INTRODUCTION. 



THAT a teacher should print the work of his pupils is, 
perhaps, extraordinary ; that he should accompany their 
work with an appendix in the nature of a discussion of his own 
method of teaching is, doubtless, so extraordinary as to need 
explanation. The explanation is as follows: In the autumn or 
winter of 1880, I learned that the "New Shakspere Society" 
of England conferred annual prizes upon schools for good work 
done on Shakespeare in them, and that Miss Stark had gained 
this prize in the Logan Female College, Russellville, Kentucky. 
I wrote to Dr Stark, President of the Logan College, and ob- 
tained from him the Examination Papers, and also the permission, 
courteously given by him and by Mr. Furness of Philadelphia, 
to use the questions. These examination questions, with, I 
think, one omission and five additions of my own, were used 
in this Institute for the " Prize Examination on //^'////t'/ " printed 
herewith. Hamlet was the play read that session in my senior 
Literature class. The Examination Papers were printed, sent to 
England, the New Shakspere Society's prize was gained, and a 
very gratifying letter received from Mr. F. J. Furnivall, the Direc- 
tor of the New Shakspere Society, accompanied by an extra com- 
plimentary prize for each of the young ladies. This award was 
noticed in the London Academy, which notice was copied into 
several papers in America. In consequence, I soon began to 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

receive applications for the Examination ; then came letters 
asking information as to my method of teaching, for advice 
as to how to study Shakespeare and how to make him inter- 
esting in little clubs ; requesting me to instruct by correspond- 
ence ; to go through a play by letter as I go through one orally 
with my class ; and so on. In the summer of 1882, the Macbeth 
Examination was also printed to be sent to England, secured a 
continuance of the prize, was subsequently noticed in this 
country, and called forth additional letters. These letters have 
come chiefly from teachers and have shown a wide-spread 
interest in the school study of Shakespeare. To answer them 
fully and satisfactorily has been — with the best will in the 
world — beyond my ability, as can be readily imagined. Yet 
I have regretted keenly this inability, and have been troubled 
to think that a few words of direct, practical suggestion, even 
from so humble a student of Shakespeare as myself, might fall 
upon good ground and bring forth much fruit, and that these 
words were not uttered. 

To this consideration have been added the influence of 
advice, public and private, to print the Examinations in a 
form accessible to the public, and the promptings of my own 
vehement desire to do all within my power to encourage the 
study of Shakespeare in schools throughout the country, espe- 
cially in schools for girls. For I believe that Shakespeare can 
and will do a work for our youth, just at this period of our 
national life, not to be done in any other way. 

Hence it is that this little book is in existence: a work doi,. 
chiefly by women, published chiefly for women. 

I hope that my remarks on "Class-Room Study of Shake- 
speare " may serve as a reply to the letters which I have received ; 



^ 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

that the Examinations, taken with these remarks, may form a 
suggestive working commentary on the two plays discussed ; 
and that my fellow-teachers and fellow-students may find them- 
selves helped by a comparison of methods. 

These Examinations are the result of such careful study of 
Shakespeare as precluded, it is hoped, any "cram ^' in the ordi- 
nary sense of the word ; though, doubtless, none of the young 
ladies examined would be found as ready now as when they 
vere working on the Examination. The questions arc identical 
ir. kind with the ordinary class-work, and give the results of that 
same work carried on in a post-graduate way ; and, for any 
independent progress in Shakespeare study, that is the proper 
method. 

In giving these Examinations to the public, I beg that it be 
borne in mind that they are printed as they were written, — 
errors and all, a few clerical errors excepted, — and that they 
present their authors in an examination light, consequently to 
some disadvantage. Yet I think I may be permitted to say 
that I would be fully content could I hope to get one such piece 
of work each year from among my pupils, to work with whom 
and for whom affords such sincere satisfaction and enjoyment. 

Miss Bowman's graduating essay on " Gertrude '^ is printed 
because it is an interesting and thoughtful study of an interesting 
subject. The regular class examination in Hamlet — which I 
now think was too long — is also printed. 

My own remarks do not pretend to be a correct theory of how 
Shakespeare should be taught ; do not even pretend to be stated 
in an exhaustive and systematic way. They are filled with repe- 
titions, are rough in style, and are fragmentary in form. The 
atmosphere of the class-room is strong upon them. But it seems 



lO INTRODUCTION. 

best to me to leave them in this half-colloquial form, as they may 
be on that account more readily available to those who find 
23rofit in them, especially to young people studying alone. I 
shall be very glad to learn from the experience of others, and 
my desire is to modify my views if I shall be thereby enabled to 
do my work more effectually. Each teacher must work inde- 
pendently ; but almost any teacher may help almost any other 
teacher to do his work better. Criticism of my method will be 
welcome. 

Indeed, no claim of originality is intended to be made in 
speaking of my method of teaching as peculiar to myself. Rather 
am I making a report on the methods of Abbott and Aldis 
Wright and Hudson, than setting up any method of my own. 
The small volume of essays by Mr. H. N. Hudson, "English in 
Schools, '^ of which more hereafter, should be in the hands of 
every Shakespeare teacher in America. My own experience 
had brought me to many of his conclusions before I saw the 
book ; but it is all the more welcome on that account. 

My earnest hope for this little book is, that it may prove sug- 
gestive and useful. Its pronounced personality was unavoidable. 

I desire to express my high appreciation of the generous con- 
duct of the New Shakspere Society, and my conviction that they 
are doing much to foster the study of Shakespeare in the schools ; 
and to acknowledge my obligations to Mrs. E. F. Bemis, of 
Maiden, Mass., of the " Society to Encourage Studies at Home," 
for her kindness in promoting the production of this little volume. 
Especially do I wish to record my hearty thanks to Mr. Joseph 
Crosby, of Zanesville, Ohio, for the generous sympathy, the 
sound counsel, the prompt aid which he has given me, — indeed, 
who in America earnestly desiring to study Shakespeare has not 



INTRODUCTION. II 

something to thank Mr. Crosby for? And finally, my thanks for 
efficient help of every kind in this undertaking are due to her 
whom, of all his friends, the nearest and dearest, a man loves 
best to thank. 

W. T. T. 

HoLLiNs Institute, Roanoke Co., Va. 
February, 1883, 



This book is finished; and yet such bitter constraint as 
will not be gainsaid demands this further word : 

The two Hamlet Examinations are reprinted from a 
pamphlet form which is found to be so hopelessly errone- 
ous in places as to preclude successful correction at this 
distance of time from the writing of the papers. And, 
further, the writer of the first of these two papers should not 
be now judged by one or two of the rather hastily expressed 
criticisms therein contained — criticisms expressed by the 
girl of eighteen which the maturer judgment of the woman 
of twenty no longer sanctioned. 

And for myself, I must be permitted to say that my part 
of the work would have sought to express itself in a style 
more sustained, of graver earnest, had I foreseen that a book's 
beginning was to last longer than a human life : that she for 
whose sake in so great degree it was begun, who watched 
its progress so eagerly and awaited its coming so joyously, 
that she, ere it was finished, was to be lying so still this fair 
spring day within the dim shadow of pale death. 

Go, now, little Book, begun with joyous hope, ended in 
grief; and may you bear into many homes and hearts the 
deep teachings of the great Master and the pure influence 
of that Cordelia-spirit whose life hke her ' voice is ever soft, 
gentle, and low.' 

April 27, 1883. 



SHAKESPEARE 

PRIZE EXAMINATION. 

HOLLINS INSTITUTE, VA. 
1881. 



NOTE. 



The young ladies studying in the Literature Department of Hollins In- 
stitute were notified during tlie session that a prize examination in Hamlet 
would be held in the spring, and the papers forwarded to the " New Shak- 
spere Society" of England, for the purpose of obtaining, if possible, the 
prize offered by that Society for the encouragement of the study of Shalce- 
speare in schools. Two young ladies offered to compete, both of whom 
received their training in this Institute. They worked on the examination 
after the regular recitation hours, and were given ample time to tiiink over 
their work. They had no idea of what the questions would be, and pre- 
pared the wliole play. The questions were arranged by Mr. H. H. Furness 
of Philadelphia, and were first used by Dr. Stark at Logan Female College, 
Kentucky. By the courtesy of both gentlemen I was permitted to use them 
again, and, in doing so, I added questions [56], [57], [60], [61], [67]. The 
papers were submitted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanesville, Ohio, for ex- 
amination. He considered both as worthy of being forwarded to England, 
and both are herewith given. The young ladies. Miss Mertins, of Alabama, 
and Miss Wilson, of South Carolina, wrote entirely unassisted, and their 
work, except a few clerical corrections, is given as they produced it. 

Wm. Taylor Thom, 
Prof. English Language and Literature. 

Hollins Institute, Virginia. 



PRIZE EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 



HoLLiNS Institute, Virginia, May, i88i. 

Questions by Horace Howard Furness, Esq., of Philadelphia. 
Examination Papers of Miss Emma A. Mertins, of Ala- 
ba??ia, and Miss Hanjiah Wilson, of South Carolina. 



HISTORICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. 

1. On what story is Shakspere's tragedy of Hamlet founded? 

2. Did Shakspere get it from the Danish historian? 

3. What is the date of the earhest edition of Shakspere's Hamlet ? 

4. What is the date of the second edition? 

5. Is there much difference in bulk between these two editions? 

6. When was the first edition said to have been acted? 

7. And probably on what occasion ? 

8. How was the copy of the first edition probably obtained for the 
printer? 

9. Does Francis Meres mention it? 

10. What is the theory of the editors of the Clarendon Press Edition 
in regard to the quarto of 1603? 

11. Is there any difference between the first and second editions on 
the score of Hamlet's madness? 

12. Is there any difference in the names of the characters? 

13. Is there any contemporaneous play of Hamlet in any other lan- 
guage than English? 

14. What is the date of the first edition of Shakspere's collected 
works? 

15. How many years after Shakspere's death was it published? 

16. And by whom was it published? 



l6 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

I. The Story upon which Shakspere founded his Tragedy 
of Hamlet is as follows : — 

Roderick, king of Denmark, having divided his kingdom 
into sections, placed over them governors, among whom 
were two brothers, Horvendile and Fengon. At that time 
the greatest honor was obtained by piracy, and in this Hor- 
vendile excelled all others. Collere, king of Norway, aware 
of this fact, and perhaps envious of his fame, challenged 
Horvendile to a combat in which the winner was to gain all 
that was in the other's ship. In the contest Collere was 
killed. Horvendile returned home with his booty, a great 
part of which he gave to King Roderick, from whom he 
received his daughter in marriage. Their son is the hero of 
the story. Fengon became envious of his brother's good 
fortune, and resolved to kill him. The muixler of Horven- 
dile by Fengon, the marriage of the latter with his brother's 
widow, Hamlet's feigned madness, the various means em- 
ployed by Fengon to discover Hamlet's secret, Polonius* 
death, Hamlet's remonstrances with his mother, and his 
banishment to England, are all found in the Histoire of Belle- 
forest, which goes on to say how, after his uncle's death, 
Hamlet became king of Denmark, how he went to England 
again, married two wives, by one of whom he was betrayed, 
after having returned to Denmark, into the hands of his 
maternal uncle, Wiglerus, and was finally slain in batde. 
The denouement of this story differs essentially from Shak- 
spere's Hamlet, othenvise the action of the play is very 
much the same in both. The names in the " Historie," with 
the exception of Hamlet himself and of his mother, Geruth, 
have no resemblance to Shakspere's. The scene is laid in 
Denmark, before the introduction of Christianity there, and 
when the Danish power held sway over England. The story 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 1/ 

is rude, uncouth and unredeemed by any artistic touches 
of the narrator, and is typical of the corrupt morals of the 
time. 

2. The story of Hamlet is told by Saxo Grammaticus, in 
his Historia Danica, written between 1180 and 1208, but not 
published until 15 14. This story is found incorporated in 
Francis Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, printed at Paris 
about 1570. A translation of the story from the Histoire 
brought it upon the English stage. It was first printed in 
London by Richard Bradocke, in 1608, and had probably 
been adapted to the stage before Shakspere took it up. 
Upon one of these old plays he no doubt built his own 
tragedy, though he does not follow in all the details any par- 
ticular version of it. Shakspere was probably familiar with 
Holinshed's treatment of the subject. 

3. The earliest edition of Shakspere 's Hamlet was printed 
in 1603, and was acted by his Highness' servants in London, 
at Cambridge and Oxford. 

4. The date of the second is 1604. 

5. It was enlarged to "almost as much again as it was 
according to the true and perfect copy." That of 1603 con- 
tained about thirty leaves, whereas the edition of 1604 con- 
tained fifty, exclusive of the title. 

6. The first edition was acted in London, and at the two 
Univ^ersities of Cambridge and "Oxford. 

7. Probably at the coronation of James I. 

8. The copy of the first edition was probably obtained by 
some short-hand reporter while the play was being acted, or 
from the actors themselves — passages were jotted down — 
some from memory, and, when memory failed, the passage 
was supplied by some stupid blockhead, and in this condition 
the play was hurried to the press. 



16 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

9. Francis Meres does not mention the play q>{ Hamlet m 
his Palladis Tamia of 1598, because it liad not been written 
then. He mentions Two Genilemeii of Verona, En-ors, 
Love's Labor's Lost, Love's Labor's IVon, Midsummer 
Night's Dream, and Merchant of Venice, for comedy ; and 
for tragedy Richard LL., Richard LIL., Henry LV., King 
John, Romeo and Juliet, and Titus Andronicus. He would 
certainly have included Hamlet in the list in preference to 
some there mentioned, being decidedly superior to them, 
had it existed, for he was an ardent admirer of Shakspere. 

10. The theory of the editors of the Clarendon Press 
Edition is based upon subjective considerations. For a long 
time a play on the subject of Hamlet had existed, and these 
editors think that about 1602 Shakspere took such a play, 
and began to revise it and rewrite, as he had done others — 
that in this work he advanced little further than to the third 
act, which fact can easily be ascertained by examining the 
two quartos — that further examination will show that the 
inferiority of some parts of the quarto of 1603 to that of 1604 
cannot be accounted for on the supposition that they were 
written at different periods of the author's life, especially as 
the first could scarcely have been written before 1602. 

The inferior portions of the quarto of 1603 are hence 
attributed to some lesser artist, and regarded as the remains 
of the old tragedy. 

11. The first edition differs from the second with regard 
to Hamlet's madness, in that, in the first, it is decidedly more 
marked, more pronounced than in the second. 

12. Polonius, in the edition of 1603, is Corambis, Rey- 
naldo is Montano, and Voltimand is Voltimar. 

13. There is a play contemporaneous with Shakspere's 
Hamlet in the German language, not derived from Shak- 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. I9 

spcre's play, but founded on same old story as was his. 
Polonius in this play is Corambis. 

14. The date of the first edition of Shaksj^ere's collected 
works was about 1623. 

15. From Shakspere's death, 1616 — seven years. 

Em:\ia a. Mertins. 



I. Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet \^ founded on a story 
from the Danish Chronicles of Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote 
probably from 1 180-1208. They were first printed at Paris, 
in 15 14, and incorporated into Belleforest's Hisfoires Tra- 
giqties, thence translated into English. The earliest English 
translation extant, of the volume in which the story of Hamlet 
is found, is that of 1608. The characters in this story bear 
no resemblance in name to those of Shakespeare, except in 
the case of Hamlet, who is Hamblet, and that of his mother, 
who is called Geruth ; Polonius is Corambis, and Reynaldo, 
]\lontano. The story is one of horrible intrigue and murder, 
unrelieved by a single touch of art or fancy. It is substan- 
tially this : The Kingdom of -Denmark was divided into 
provinces, over two of which the war-like brothers, Horvendile 
and Fengo, were Governors. In that age piracy was esteemed 
not only legitimate but honorable, and Horvendile's famous 
feats moved Collere, King of Norway, to challenge him to 
combat, the victor being awarded as spoils, the vessel and its 
contents, of the vanquished. Horvendile being victorious, 
returned in triumph to Denmark, and rendered up his treas- 
ures to the King, who thereupon rewarded him with the hand 
of his daughter, Geruth, in marriage, and, upon his death, 
left him on the Danish throne. From this marriage sprang 
Hamlet, the hero of the story. Fengo, being filled with envy 



20 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

at his brother's good fortune, corrupted his Queen, and then 
murdered him secretly. Hamlet, naturally fearing for his life, 
feigns madness. Corambis (the Polonius of Shakespeare) 
warns the king, and together they plot against him, contriv- 
ing an interview between Hamlet and the Queen, to which 
Corambis was a secret listener. Hamlet, suspecting treach- 
ery, keeps up his assumed madness, and beating on the 
arras with his arms, discovers his hidden foe, on which, 
crying " a rat, a rat," he thrusts him through with his sword, 
and drawing him out half dead, finishes the bloody deed in 
the presence of the Queen. Geruth declares her innocence 
of the murder of Horvendile, and tells Hamlet that she had 
often interfered to save his (Hamlet's) hfe. Fengo now 
despatches Hamlet to England, in charge of agents who are 
instructed to have him executed. Hamlet succeeds in 
delivering himself, and returns to Denmark, where, after 
marrying two wives, he is finally slain in battle. Hamlet's 
melancholy is prominent in the old story, and there is an 
episodical narrative to the effect that the nortliern country 
was under the dominion of Satan, and it is obscurely hinted 
that Hamlet, like other young men of the time, held some 
communion with spirits. 

2. Shakespeare probably took his play from the English 
translation of this old story, and from an older play, of un- 
known origin, founded on it. 

3. The first that we hear of Shakespeare's Hamlet is from 
an entry in the Stationers' Registry, in London, July 26, 1602, 
of a book, " The Tragicall Historie of Hamlett, Prince of 
Denmarke," by WiUiam Shakespeare. This is probably the 
book which appeared in print the following year, 1603. 

4. 1604. 

5. That of 1603 contained thirty-two pages, the second 
edition twice as much. 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 2 1 

6. In the city of London, the Universities of Cambridge 
and Oxford, and elsewhere. 

7. Probably on the accession of James I., as is suggested 
by the editors of the Clarendon Press Series. 

o. It was probably taken down by a short-hand writer 
from the stage. -^ 

9. Francis Meres, a great admirer of Shakespeare's genius, 
in his " Palladis Tamia," or IVifs Treasury,\\x\\X.Q\\ in 1598, 
fails to mention among the list of Shakespeare's plays then 
current, that of Hamlet, which is a significant sign that it was 
not then in existence. 

10. That it represents Shakespeare's Hamlet in a transi- 
tional state, from its beginning in an old play, which Shake- 
speare took and fitted for the stage by some alterations and 
additions of his own, and afterwards expanded into the 
quarto of 1604, which is the play that we have. 

11. Hamlet's madness is more pronounced in the quarto 
of 1603. 

13. In the German. 

14. The first collected edition was made in 1623. 

15. Seven years. 

16. Heminge and Condell. 

Hannah Wilson. 



GRAMMATICAL. 

17. Explain the use of "sensible,''^ in L i. 57.^ Give other instances 
of adjectives similarly used in this play. In Macbeth ; in Merchant of 
Venice. 

18. What is the meaning of " still'''' in I. i. 122? Can you recall any 
other instances in this play? Any in Macbeth ? In Merchant of Venice ? 

1 The references here and elsewhere in these examinations are to the 
Clarendon Press editions of the plays. 



22 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

19. What was Shakspere's use of ^^ thou'''' and '^ yozi^^ ? Illustrate 
by references to Hamlet. 

20. What ellipsis is there in "That father lost, lost his, and the sur- 
vivor bound " ? 

21. Can you recall any instances of suffixes appended to nouns for 
the purpose of signifying an agent ? In Macbeth ? In Alerchant of 

Venice? 

22. Can you give any instances of the use of the prefix a before 
nouns ? before participles ? 

23. Give instances of Shakspere's use of double comparatives ? 

24. Can you recall any instances where Shakspere neglects the in- 
flection of the pronoun who ? In JMacheth ? In Merchant of Venice ? 

25. Give some instances of the conversion of one part of speech into 
another. 

26. Give some account of the rise of the use of its. 

27. What is Marsh's rule about the use by Elizabethan writers of 
sith and since ? Does the rule hold miiformly good in Shakspere ? 

28. Explain the meaning of the line : " When we have shufiled off 
this mortal coil." What peculiarity in the use of the adjective ? Illus- 
trate by examples. 

29. "The glow worm shows the matin to be near, and 'gins to pale 
his uneffectual ^x^.^'' What is the meaning of nneffectual? Give exam- 
ples of adjectives used proleptically. 

17. The use of sensible in this hne is an example of what 
Mr. Abbott calls the passive use of adjectives. The word 
means that which can be peixeived, real, actual, tangible. It 
is not used now in that sense. 

Other instances like this occur, as flausive mannciSy 
meaning manners that can be applauded, and hence pleas- 
ing. The expression dreadful secrecy, also in this play, is a 
similar use of adjectives in this sense. In Macbeth is the 
expression, " To throw away the dearest thing he owed as 
'twere a careless trifle," also "the sightless couriers of the 
air." 

18. Still, here means constantly. From the original signi- 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET, 23 

fication of quiet, unmoved ; then continuing in this state of 
rest, and hence eoiisfantly. 

Other instances occur in, '•' Thou still hast been the flithcr 
of good news," 

*' I should still be plucking the grass to find where the 
wind sits," — Merchant of Venice. ''The world is still 
deceived with ornament." — J\Terchant of Veiiice. 

'' 6V/// gazing in a doubt." — Merchant of Venice, 

'' Remove from her the means of all annoyance, and still 
keep eyes upon her." — Macbetli, 

" Your good advice, which still hath been both grave and 
prosperous." 

19, Thou, in Shakspere, is used in familiar address; 
yon, in formal address. Thou, also, was used in speaking 
to inferiors. Thus, in the gravedigger's scene, Hamlet 
always addresses the clown as tJiou, and the clown replies 
with a respectful " You, my Lord." Hamlet, having killed 
Polonius, says : '"' Thou rash, intruding fool, I took tliee for 
tJiy better ! " Here thou, because he took him for his bet- 
ter, and now discovers his real character. 

When the King asks Laertes, ''What wouldst tiiou have, 
Laertes?" he probably uses tliou, because Laertes begs a 
favour, and is, in tliis sense, his inferior. 

Perhaps tliou, in the exclamation of the Queen, " O 1 
Hamlet, tliou has cleft my heart in twain ! " contains a touch 
of affection which you would not express. 

20. "That father lost, lost his," &c. 

The ellipsis seems to be, '' that father, who was lost, lost 
his." The relative is frequently omitted in Shakspere, where 
the meaning is evident, and the ellipsis can be easily sup- 
plied. La the expression, " Now follows tliat you know " ; 
that is, " that that you know," the relative and demonstra- 



24 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

tive pronoun being the same, the ellipsis is quite natural. 
The neuter verb is also frequently omitted in such cases as 
this. A similiar omission of relative and neuter verb occurs 
in the passage : " And they, in France, of a most select," &c., 
omitted, because of the pronoun before, and the prepositional 
clause coming after, " And they who are,'' &c. 

21. Suffixes used by Shakspere for converting a noun 
into an agent, are er, or, as truster, ting, as grotmdling — 
Hamlet; sleepers — Macbeth. 

2 2. The prefix a was primarily on, in, a preposition con- 
tracted by rapidity of pronunciation, and hence occurs with 
those words most commonly in use. Thus a-7uork, a-waking, 
at gaming, a-cursing, in Hamlet; a-brewing, a-bleeding, 
Merchant of Venice ; a-foot, Macbeth ; ''■on brood," Hamlet; 
stand an end, an for euphony. 

23. More nearer is an instance of the use of double com- 
parative where the force of the er as sign of comparative 
having been lost, the word was compared by more and most. 
Moj'e richer also occurs in Hamlet, more elder in Merchant 
of Venice ; '■'■ my sudden and more strange return," Hamlet ; 
also worser. 

24. Who is not inflected in the expressions " Between 
who?" ''Saw? Who?" Hamlet. 

25. The following are instances of the conversion of one 
part of speech into another, " as hush as death," "I doubt it 
nothing^' "in few,'' '^moment leisure," ''music vows," 
" ;r^/^;Hdtes," wont, past participle of Anglo-Saxon wunian. 
woned, wont used as noun, instant instantly, "most select 
and generous chief m that," hatch, disclose, remove, Hamlet; 
^^ trifle'' is used in Macbeth as a verb (active), "to tjp Mac- 
beth," same use of top occurs in King Lear ; '^ vinegar 2iS- 
pect," ''exceeding strange," "childhood proof" "will you 
pleasure me," Merchant of Venice, 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 2$ 

26. //s was not used very often by Shakspere, as in the 
expression, " It lifted up it head, &c.," in Hamlet, and 111 
King Lear, " It had it head bit off by it young." His was 
genitive masculine and neuter of the pronoun lie, lieo, liiL 
When a thing was personified there was danger of mistaking 
the ids used in personification for the neuter iiit. Milton 
frequently uses the feminine form in such cases, as '•^ his form 
had not yet lost all Jier origmal brightness." 

The inconvenience of this became great and the writers 
made use of Jiifs, it's, its, instead of the neuter form Ins. 

27. Marsh's rale about the use of sit/i and since is that 
sith has an illative force and since merely expresses time 
after. Shakspere makes no such nice distinction, but uses 
them interchangeably. 

28. "Shuffle off this mortal coil.''' A metaphor from any- 
thing that winds in coils, entanglements. A similar use of 
the adjective mortal is found in Macbeth : mortal words, 
mortal thoughts. 

29. ''The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, and 
'gins to pale his uneffectualfire.'' 

Fire may here be said to be uneffectual, because in the 
superior light of the sun the feeble light of the glowworm 
is as naught. In the use of prefixes havmg a negative force, 
///, ?///, and the like, Shakespeare makes no distinction, 
though he seems to prefix nn before dentals. Un is perhaps 
stronger. Uneffectual is used proleptically. Otiier exam- 
ples of this use of the adjective occur in the expressions 
"rose of the fair state " — fair because the rose adorns it. 
"Takes off the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent 
love," in Hamlet, and in Macbeth, "'ere humane statute purged 
\X-\Q gentle weal " — gentle being the effect of purging. 

Emma A. Mertins. 



26 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 



17. We find adjectives, especially those ending in ////, 
/ess, blc, and ive, used sometimes in an active and sometimes 
in a passive sense. 

Hamlet I. i. 57. — 

" I might not this believe 
Without the sensible and true avouch 
Of mine own eyes." 

Sensible, which we use in a neuter sense, is here passive, 
meaning " real, tangible, that may be felt or perceived by 
the senses." 

Merchant of Venice II. viii. 48. — 

" And with the affection wondrous sensible 
He wrung Bassanio's hand." 

Sensible is here active, and means " feeling." 

Macbeth I. vii. 23. — 

" UjDon the sightless couriers of the air 
Shall blow this horrid deed in every eye." 

Siglitless is here passive, meaning '' unseen." 

Hamlet I. ii. 207. — 
" This to me 
In dreadful secrecy impart they did." 

Dreadful, meaning "frightened," is here used in a passive 
sense. 

Hamlet I. iv. 30. — 

"The form oi plaiisive manners." 

Plausive, meaning " that may be applauded," is here 
passive. 

18. Hamlet I. i. 122. — 

" As harbingers preceding still the fates." 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 2/ 

Still here, according to its original meaning of " un- 
moved," "in one place," has the force oi always, constantly. 

Hamlet II. ii. 42. — 

" Thou still hast been the father of good ne\\s." 

Macbeth III. i. 21. — 

" We should have else desired your good advice, 
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous." 

Merchant of Venice I. i. 17. — • 
" I should be still 
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind." 

19. The Elizabethan use of "thou" is the same as that 
of the German " du." It was the pronoun (i) of affection 
towards friends, (2) of good-humoured familiarity towards 
servants, (3) of contempt for strangers. This use of " thou" 
commenced to be broken down in Shakespeare's time, and 
subsequently "thou" became the rhetorical pronoun, while 
" you " was commonly used in conversation. In Hamlet 
[sc. ii.], beginning at line 40, in the interview between 
Laertes and the King, he, in speaking to Laertes, begins 
widi the formal "you," and then, rising in his professions of 
esteem for Laertes, uses the affectionate "thou," — again 
returning to formal questioning, resumes the use of " you," — 
and, once more, in granting a gracious permission of the 
desired favor, returns to "thou." In the same scene, the 
King, in his argument with Hamlet, uses the formal "you," 
the Queen the affectionate " thou." 

20. "That father (who was) lost, lost his, and the survivor bound." 

The Elizabethan desire for brevity caused them often to 
omit words, wliich to our minds are important to the con- 
struction, and which omission sometimes leads to great ob- 



28 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

scLirity. In this case the missing words may be readily 
supphed from the context. 

21. Hamlet I. ii. 172. — 

" Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, 
To make it truster of your own report 
Against yourself." 
Merchant of Venice III. iii. I. — 

" Gaoler look to him; tell me not of mercy." 
Macbeth I. vii. 65. — 

" Memory, the %vardcr of the brain." 

2 2. In the formative period of the language adverbs were 
frequently formed from nouns, adjectives, and joarticiples, by 
prefixing ''a," which represented an earlier "in" or "on." 

Hamlet II. ii. 685. — "And fall a-cursiug'' — (part.), "a" 
has the force of "on" or "in the act of." 

Hamlet II, ii. 473. — 

" Aroused vengeance sets him new a-workP 

Lear III. iv. 136. — 

" Poor Tom's a-coldP 
Macbeth III. iv. 33-4. — 

"The feast is sold 
That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-makingP 

23. The use of the double comparative by Shakespeare 
does not convey a negative force, as with us, but was simply 
intensitive. The comparative was first formed by the addi- 
tion of "er" or "re," but m the transitional state of the 
language, this termination lost its force, and " more " was 
frequently added to intensify. 

Hamlet II. i. lo-ii. — 

" By this encompassment and drift of question 
— come you more nearer P 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 29 

24. Hamlet II. ii. 195. — 

" Between zoho ?" 

Macbeth IV. iii. 170. — 

" The dead man's knell 
Is there scarce ask'd for 7aho." 

25. We find great license in the Elizabethan usage in this 
respect ; almost any part of speech can be used as another, 
— nouns as adjectives and verbs, pronouns used as nouns, 
transitive verbs used intransitively, etc. 

Hamlet II. ii. 470. — 

"The bold winds speechless and the orb below 
As /nis/i as death." — [interjection for adjective.] 

Macbeth I. v. 6. — 

" Who all-Jiailed me." — [interjection used as verb.] 

Macbeth II. iii. iS. — 

'■'■^\\Q primrose way." — [noun as adjective.] 

Macbeth II. iii. 118.— 

" To show an unfelt sorrow, is an office 
Which the false man does easyP 

— [adjective for adverb.] 
Hamlet I. iii. 132-3. — 

" I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, 
Have you so slander any moment leisure." 

Here we have a noun used for the adjective, where we 
should probably use the genitive or some other adjective. 

Hamlet I. v. 90. — 

"And 'gins io pale his uneffectual fire." 

— [adjective as verb.] 

26. In Shakespeare's time 'Mils" was generally used as 
the genitive of "it," and we find this use prevailing until the 
time of Milton. 



30 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

27. Marsh's rule was that "sith" was the illative adverb, 
and '"'sithence" or "since" the temporal adverb. Shake- 
speare uses them changeably. . 

Hamlet III. iii. 53-4. — 

" That cannot be; si72ce (illative) I am still possess'd 
Of those effects for which I did the murder." 

Hamlet III. ii. 58-59.— 

" Since (temporal) my dear soul was mistress of her choice 
And could of men distinguish, her election 
Hath sealed thee for herself." 

28. " When we liave shuffled off this mortal coil." 

It seems to be a euphemism — to express, in an elegant 
way, the act of dying. "Coil" is used as of a rope, to 
express folds or entanglements. 

29. "The glow-vA'orm shows the matin to be near, 

And 'gins to pale his micffcctual fire." 

"Uneffc'ct/iar' is used for "ineffectual." The meaning of 
the expression is, the glow-worm's fire, which could only be 
seen in darkness, was beginning to grow pale in the growing 
light of day, and that it would by broad daylight be of no 
effect. 

Hamlet HI. i. 152.— 

"The expectancy and rose of they^z'r state." 

The state was fai?- because it was so adorned. 

Macbeth III. iii. 76.— 

"Ere humane statute purged ihe gentle weal." 

Here the weal is represented as gentle because it has 
been purged. 

Hannah Wilson. 






EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 3 1 



PHILOLOGICAL. 

30. What is the meaning of, " I'll make a ghost of him that lets me -^ 

31. What is the meaning of ujihouseVd, disappointed, unanclcd l^ 

32. What is the meaning of windlaxses and assays of bias ? 
'})'^. Is Shakspere's use of the word closet the same as ours ? 

34. What is the meaning of, "The clown shall make those laugh, 
whose lungs are tickle 0' the sere^'l 

35. Explain : " I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is 
southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." 

36. What is the meaning of extravagant ? I. i. 154.^ 

yj. What is the meaning of, "No fairy takes''! I. i. 163. ^ 

38. Is Shakspere's accent oi Hyperion (I. ii. 140) correct ? k^ 

39. Explain the meaning of " ^/ivz/r^/yi?.?." I. ii. 1S2. ^^ 

40. What is the derivation of ^^ nickname'''' ? III. i. 144. 

41. Was a "jig'''' anything more than a dance in Shakspere's day? 

42. Explain " black and ^•■rrt:/«^^5/(?/^." III. iv. 90. 

43. What is the meaning oi " curb and zcoo'^l III. iv. 152. 

44. Explain the allusion in " the owl was a baker's daughter." 

45. What was Shakspere's opinion of politicians, as inferred from 
Lis use of the word ? 

46. What is the meaning of, " Woo't drink up eisel " ? 

47. Explain : " I would have such a fellow whipped for o'crdoing 
Termagant. It out-herods Herod." 

48. Explain: "Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers — if the 
rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me — with two provincial roses on 
my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir ? " 

49. Explain : " The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, 
keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels." ^"^ 

50. What does Bernardo mean by caUing Horatio and Marcellus 
" the rivals of my watch " ? ^ 

51. Explain: " Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the 
bilboes." 

52. What is Shakspere's use of ''ecstasy " ?v^ 

53. What is the meaning of eager, in "like eager droppings into 
milk," and in "a nipping and an eager air" ?^^ 

54. Explain : " They can well on horseback." 



32 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

55. What does Hamlet mean by saying to Rosencrantz and Guilden- 
slern, " Let me comply with you in this garb " ? 

[56.] Explain : " To split the ears of the grotindliiigs.^'' 
[57/1 Explain: "For, O, For, O, the hobby-horse is forgot." 

^o. " I'll make a diost of him that lets me," means, I'll 
make a ghost of him that hinders, prevents me from going. 
This word let, though having the same form, is derived from 
an Anglo-Saxon verb, different from the word let, which 
means to permit. (Anglo-Saxon Icetan means permit and 
lettaii means prevent^ 

31. The meaning of '■'■ Jinhouseled,^'' is not having received 
the eucharist. It is from the Anglo-Saxon noun husel, verb 
unJmsUaii. Disappointed means unpj'epared. Unaneied sig- 
nifies not having received extreme unction. 

32. ^^ Windlasses and assays of Mas ^^ mean circuitous and 
indirect ways or means. Assays of bias is a metaphor from 
the game cf bowls where the bowl, by a circular movement, 
is made to reach the "queen," instead of by a direct hne. 

2y2i' Shakspere uses the word "-closet^' to mean one's 
private apartments as it does in the Scriptures. I think it 
is now used to mean a small recess adjoining a larger room. 

34. " The clown shall makes those laugh whose lungs are 
tickle <?' the sere^ 

The scare, or sej-e, was part of or attached to the trigger 
of old matchlock guns, so arranged that the slightest move- 
ment would make the gun discharge. Lungs, then, " tickle 
o' the sere," are those easily excited to laughter. 

35. "I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is 
southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." 

Handsaw is probably a corruption for heronsaw, hernsaw. 
In some dialects of England harnsa is used, and it is but a 
step from this to handsaw. The meaning generally given to 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 33 

this passage is, that birds generally fly with the wind, and, 
when the wind is northerly, the sun dazzles the hunter's eye, 
and he is scarcely able to distinguish one bird from another. 
If the wind is southerly, the bird flies in that direction, and 
his back is to the sun, and he can easily know a hawk from 
a handsaw. When the wind is north-north-west, which 
occurs about ten o'clock in the morning, the hunter's eye, 
the bird, and the sun, would be in a direct line, and with the 
sun thus in his eye he would not at all be able to distinguish 
a Jiawk from a handsazv. 

36. ''Extravagant,'' compounded from Latin extra, and 
vagare-vagans, originally meant wandering beyond due 
bounds, limits, in the broadest sense, but now is restricted to 
meaning wandering beyond bounds as regards expenditures. 

37. "No fairy takes'' 

Takes is an astrological term, like strikes. In King Lear 
occurs th^ taking air — the term refers to the malignant 
influence supposed to be exerted by the phenomena of the 
natural world, and the invisible spirits popularly believed to 
exist. 

38. ''Hyperion to a satyr." 

Siiakspere, in the word Hyperion, throws the accent 
which should be placed on the penult back one syllable on 
the antepenult. 

39. "Dearest foe y 

Dear, in Shakspere's time, was not restricted as now, 
but was used to express intense feeling, whether of hatred or 
love. Thus, in As You Like It, Shakspere writes : " My 
father hated his father dearly." 

40. "Nickname." 

The derivation perhaps is from an eke-name, an agnomen, 
the "n" having possibly sUpped from the article, and become 



34 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

joined to the e/ce-name, as similarly an ad^er was originally 
a nadder, an api^on was a naperon. 

41. A ^'j'ig,'^ in the days of Shakspere, besides being a 
dance, was also a song, perhaps quick and rapid in move- 
ment in imitation of the dance. 

42. "Such black and grained spots as will not leave their 
tinct." 

Grained, primarily meant dyed in grain. Grain was the 
name of a dye obtained from the coccus insect, a scarlet 
dye, which retained its color. Gradually this meaning was 
lost, and the term came to be applied to all colors that would 
"not leave their tinct," 

43. '^Curb and woo,'^ are explained as meaning to bow 
and beg ; curb being from French courber. 

44. ^^The owl was a bake7''s daughter.''^ 

As the legend goes, Christ begged hospitality of a baker's 
wife, who would have given it, but was prevented from 
doing this act of charity towards the seeming beggar by her 
daughter, who was, in consequence, changed into an owl. 

45. Shakspere evidently did not have a very exalted 
opinion of politicians, for he frequently speaks of them in 
the most disparaging terms — " one who would circumvent 
God," says Hamlet, as he muses on the skull of a dead man, 
whom he imagines was once a pohtician. 

46. " iVoo't drink 7ip eisel? " 

This probably means "wouldst thou drink vinegar?" as 
aisel in Anglo-Saxon means vinegar. Some commentators 
think eisel refers to a lake somewhere in the Scandinavian 
peninsula, but as no such lake can be found, or rather, 
appears to have been found, it is safe to rely upon the other 
explanation. The meaning seems to be " Would you do a 
monstrous thing, an impossibility? I'll do it, too, and more 
than that." 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 35 

47. '■'Termagant,'' supposed to have been a god of the 
Saracens, a very violent character, was employed very often 
in the plays of the middle ages, but no such character has 
been found in any English plays. The Italian is Trivigante. 
Derivation probably tcr, three, and magnus, great. 

Herod was also a favorite character of the time, very noisy 
and turbulent, hence to " out-herod Herod " would be to be 
excessively violent. 

48. "Would not this ... get me a fellowship in a cry of 
players?" 

''Forest of Feathers r The allusion is to the fact that a 
great many feathers were worn by actors in Shakspere's 
time. 

"Turn Turk,''' that is, if my fortunes undergo a complete 
revolution for the worse. Englishmen evidently had not a 
very high opinion of the Turks, for the expression occurs in 
Othello and other plays of Shakspere. 

Provineial roses in this case were nothing more than 
rosettes worn on the shoe. The roses of Province were 
noted for their beauty. Razed, that is slashed, inlaid with 
different colored silks, stitched and embroidered perhaps. 
Cry of players means a company of players. Cry was 
commonly applied to a pack of hounds, though seldom to 
people. 

49. "The king doth 7(:/<^/C'<? to-night and takes his rouse," etc. 
Wake \ViCav\s feast, carouse, used now to mean a watch 

over the dead. 

Rouse means bumper, from Danish ruus, meaning a sur- 
feit in drinking. 

" Keeps was sail" perhaps contains the same idea of rev- 
elry, wassail being from the Anglo-Saxon waes hael, be of 
good health. 



36 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

Upsp7'i7ig was part of an old German dance. Hupfatif'xs 
the German, I believe, — a wild sort of dance. 

50. "The rivals of my watch." 

The word rivals used here in its primary signification of 
partners, those who lived b}' the same rivus or stream, and 
who both had use of it for purposes of irrigation. 

From contentions which perhaps arose between the part- 
ners, the word came to mean those who vie with each other 
in anything. 

51. "Methought I lay worse than the miifuies in the 
bilboesr 

Those confined by fetters and all chained together, so that 
the slightest mov^ement of one would arouse all the others 
from sleep. Bilboes is deriv^ed from the name of the place 
Bilboa, in Spain, where the iron fetters were made. 

52. Shakspere used ecstasy to mean insanity, madness. 
It occurs very often in Hamlet with this meaning, in Macbeth 
and elsewhere. Used now, I believe, as an expression of 
intense feeling, joy, or grief. 

53. "'Eager,''' from French aig7'e. Anything sour dropped 
into milk will make it curd, coagulate. " In eager and nip- 
ping air " the derivation of eager is the same French aigre, 
and means keen, sharp, bitter. 

54. "They can well on horseback." 

That is they are well skilled in horsemanship, can being 
used in its original meaning, to know how to do a thing, to 
be able, like the German konnen, Anglo-Saxon cunnan. 

55. '■' Let me comply with you in this garb," that is, let. me 
use ceremony with you — courtesy — lest vi\y extent, conde- 
scension, etc. Comply is used once again in this play in the 
same sense. 

[56]. " Split the ears of the groundlings.^'' 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 3/ 

The groundlings were those who were in the pit of the 
theatre, who paid a penny or more for entrance. A very 
boisterous, noisy rabble. 

[57]. " For, O, the hobby-ho7'se is forgot ! " 

The hobby-horse was a figure in the May games and 
]\Iorris dances. 

The Irish Jiob means po7iy. 

Emma A. Mertins. 



30. '^ I'll make a ghost of him that lets me." Let is de- 
rived from O. E. Ictte — to hinder. 

31. '' Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd." 
UnhousePd without the eucharist. " Housel " is from 

Anglo-Saxon housel, eucharist, from which are formed the 
verb huslian and participle gchusliad ; — disappointed, unpre- 
pared, as we speak of appointments in the sense of prepara- 
tions, — unanel'd, without having received extreme unction; 
Anglo-Saxon aell-o\\, from which the verb ancle, to give 
unction. The whole phrase indicates that the King, in his 
sudden death, had been deprived of those last rites which 
in the Romish Church are considered necessary to prepare 
the soul for the future world. 

32. '■'Windlasses and assays of bias " — winding and cir- 
cuitous ways. The phrase '■^assays of bias'' refers to a 
game of bowls in which the player strikes at his ball, not 
directly, but in a curved line, by w^hich this ball is reflected 
upon the one aimed at. Perhaps the phrase is best ex- 
plained by Polonius's own interpretation in the next line : 
" By indirections find directions out." It is noticeable here 
that Shakespeare uses the word " assay," which we use of 
trying metals, in the sense of our modern " essay " or 
'' attempt." 



38 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

33. Closet has in modern times the literal meaning of the 
Latin '*' clausus " — close, concealed. Shakespeare uses it 
of a lady's private apartment. 

34. " Tickle o' the sereT The sei-e, variously spelt sere, 
sear, or scear, was the catch in a gunlock which kept the 
hammer in half or full cock, and was released by the trigger. 
In the old matchlock muskets, the sear and trigger were in 
one piece, hence, " lungs tickle o' the sere," meant lungs 
easily moved to laughter, like a gun that went off at the 
slightest touch. 

35. In the provincial dialects of England heron was 
variously corrupted into heronshew, hamsa, etc., — from the 
latter we readily trace "handsaw." The expression obviously 
refers to the sport of hawking. A bird, especially one of 
heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the falconer or 
his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to escape. 
If the wind were northerly, the heron would fly towards the 
south, and the sportsman, having his face towards the sun, 
would be dazzled by its rays and be unable to distin- 
guish the heron from the pursuing hawk — on the other 
hand, if the wind were southerly the heron would fly to- 
wards the north, and the sportsman, now having his back 
towards the sun, would easily distinguish between the two 
birds. Further, we may notice that a wind from the pre- 
cise point, " nor-nor-west," would be in the eye of the 
sun at half-past ten in the forenoon, a likely time for 
hawking. 

36. ^^ Extravagant,^'' derived from two Latin words, "extra" 
out, beyond, and "vagans," wandering, is used by Shakespeare 
in this literal sense of wandering beyond limits, while we 
have restricted it to the sense of wandering beyond the 
bounds of economy. 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 39 

37. "Takes'' is here used in the sense of infecting, as in 
Lear II. iv. 15S — 

" Strike her young bones, 
You taking airs, with lameness." 

2,?:>. "Hyperion.'" — The accent in the original (Greek) is 
on the third syllable, which Shakespeare, as in the modern 
English manner, changes to the second. 

39. "Dear'' was used by Shakespeare of whatever touches 
us nearly, either in love or hate, joy or sorrow. 

40. "Nickname." Formerly an ^/r-narae, or an added 
name. We can readily see how "an eke-name" was 
collided into ''a nickname." 

41. "A jig" seems to have consisted of a little farcical 
acting, introduced either at the end of a play or between 
heavier pieces. 

42. " Black and grained spots." Grain from the ovarium 
of the coccus insect, which from its shape was called in 
Latin granuin. This produced a bright scarlet, an unfad- 
ing dye. The name was afterwards applied to any dye that 
will not wash out ; hence, "black and grained spots" would 
mean dark stains that were indelibly impressed. 

43. "Curb and woo." Curb, from French courier, to 
bend ; hence, to bend, or to bow and beg. 

44. There is said to have been an old tradition in Glouces- 
tershire to the effect, that the Saviour while on earth was 
churlishly refused by a baker's daughter, of whom he asked 
bread, and that she was, for this offence, changed by him 
into an owl, 

45. Evidently a low opinion. We learn from history that 
tlie politicians of his time were low political tricksters, who 
would stoop to any means to accomplish their ends. Shake- 



40 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

speare speaks of the politicians, as desiring, if it were possible, 
to overturn even the decrees of Providence. 

46. Numerous attempts have been made to explain this 
phrase, " Woo't drink up eisel.^^ Some have thought that it 
refers to a lake, Eysel, in Scandinavian mythology, which 
one of their gods was supposed to have drunk up. But 
this, on competent authority, is shown to be false, as there 
was no Lake Eysel in that country, and the only feat of that 
kind was performed by Thor, the God of Thunder, who was 
challenged to drink up a river, but the other end of the horn 
from which he was drinking being turned into the ocean by 
his opponent, he only succeeded in drinking it to its edge. 
The idea is probably that Hamlet challenges Laertes, as in 
the following words '^eat a crocodile," to perform some im- 
possible feat. The phraseology indicates supreme contempt ; 
'• woo't," a corruption of "wilt thou," being used either con- 
temptuously or as a mark of great affection. 

47. "Tc7'7?iaga7it^^ was a famous character in the old 
Miracle or IMystery plays, a supposed god of the Saracens, 
sqn of the earthquake and of the thunder. He is represented 
as a great swearer, swaggerer and boaster, raving and ranting 
up and down the stage. Herod, the Slayer of the Innocents, 
was also a favorite character in these plays, very similar to 
that of the Termagant. These characters represent what 
was called the tyrant's part on the stage, which was a very 
noisy, boisterous one, as Bottom (in ]\L N. D.) says — "My 
chief humor is for a tyrant : I could play Ercles rarely, or a 
part to tear a cat in, to make all split," 

48. Hamlet, referring to the success of his plot, asks 
Laertes if his fortunes turn TiirJz (that is, change as com- 
pletely as if one should turn from an infidel to a Christian), 
with the help of the various appurtenances belonging to an 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 4I 

actor's wardrobe would obtain for him a position in a cry 
(or company) of players. The feathers spoken of were used 
for adornment. The Provincial roses are the rosettes, in 
imitation of the roses of Provins, or Provence, a brilliant, red 
rose, worn by the actors on their shoes, and the custom, as 
well as that of razed shoes, was said to have caused great 
extravagance. These razed shoes are described as being 
fanciful leather tops, cut or slashed in various designs, and 
hned with a color to display the design. 

49. "The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, 
keeps wassail, and the swaggering up- spring reels." Wake 
means here, keeping a late feast ; rouse is from the Danish 
"runs," a bumper; wassail, from Danish ''waes hacT' — be 
of good cheer, hence wild revelry; ^- up-spring'' is said to 
be the English rendering of the German '^Hi'ipfauf,'' the last 
and merriest dance at a merry-making. 

50. It is curious that the quarto of 1603 uses "part- 
ners," which is the meaning of rivals here. The word is 
derived from Latin " rivus," which means a stream, and was 
applied to persons living beside the same stream and hav- 
ing equal rights to its use for irrigation ; hence arose fre- 
quent contentions, and hence the metaphorical use of the 
term so much more used, both in Latin and in modern lan- 
guages. 

51. '' Mutines'' — a contracted form of mutineers; "^/Z- 
bocs'' — a frame with iron stocks for holding the feet of prison- 
ers on board the vessel, so called from Bilboa, a city in Spain, 
where iron was first manufactured. We understand how 
accurately the phrase represents Hamlet's restless condition, 
by remembering that the slightest motion of one of these 
imprisoned sleepers would arouse all the others. 

52. Shakespeare uses ^'ecstasy'' as synonymous with 
madness. 



42 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

53. "Like eager droppings into milk " — a "nipping and 
an eager air" — eager, from French "aigre," means sour, 
biting, sharp. 

54. "They can well on horseback" — ^ <r^?;/, from Anglo- 
Saxon "cunnan " — to know, to be able, means well-skilled. 

55. " Comply with you in this garb," seems to be a sam- 
ple of the Euphuistic style of language originated by Jolm 
Lyly, an immediate predecessor of Shakespeare, who some- 
times adopts it to ridicule it. The meaning of the phrase 
seems equal, " use ceremony with you after this fashion." 

[56.] The ^'■groundlings''' were those who occupied the 
pit or ground-floor at the theatre, and were generally a rude, 
uncultivated set, whom Ben Jonson describes as "hissing 
everything above their grounded judgments." 

[57-] "For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot." This, 
the hobby-horse, was probably a figure in the Morris dances. 
During the Puritan sway all public amusements were forbid- 
den, which of course roused great resentment among their 
powerless opponents, and it is conjectured that this is a line 
from an old ballad satirizing the Puritan tyranny. 

Hannah Wilson. 



^ESTHETIC. 

58. What is Goethe's view of Hamlet ? 

59. What is Coleridge's ? 

[60.] What is Taine's and Hudson's ? 
[61.] What is your own ? 

62. How do you account for Hamlet's levity after his interview with 
the Ghost ? 

63. Does Hamlet or Horatio say : " The rest is silence " ? 

64. Are the flowers which Opheha distributes to the King, Queen 
and others, real or imaginary ? 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 43 

65. Was the Queen an accessory to her husband's murder ? 

66. Was Hamlet mad ? 

[67.] What is your opinion of Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia in 
HI. i.? 

58. Goethe thinks that, in the character of Hamlet, Shak- 
spere evidently intended to depict a noble soul _under the 
pressure of a duty which it is incapable of performing. " 'Tis 
a delicate vase," he says, ''in which may blossom only beau- 
tiful flowers — an oak is planted there, grows, and the vase is 
shattered." '' Thus cracks a noble heart." " Hamlet has 
no plan," says Goethe, '•' but the piece is full of plan." 
Hamlet advances, recoils, resolves and re-resolves, but never 
acts, and when finally his uncle lies dead, the deed is done, 
not from any premeditated plan-scheme, but is merely 
accidental. 

59. Coleridge thinks that in portraying Hamlet's charac- 
ter, Shakspere displayed his profound knowledge of meta- 
physics. That he desired to show the effect of an undue 
preponderance of thought over action, the unequal balance 
of the real and imaginary; that Hamlet by indulging in deep 
speculations in " thoughts that wander through eternity," 
loses the power of action. According as the exercise of 
power is hindered in its development in one direction it will 
be the more strongly and fully developed in another. The 
principle of correlation of forces which exists in the physical 
world, Mr. Coleridge thinks, holds good in the metaphysical. 
To this excessive thinking then he attributes Hamlet's inca- 
pacity for action. 

[60.] Mr. Taine thinks that Hamlet's character is intended 
to sliow the effect of a moral poisoning, as also Macbeth's. 
That within classic halls he had known none of the strife and 
misery of the world. A dear father, who to him was the 



44 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

very ideal of manhood, and the sweet Ophelia, upon whom 
he had placed his affections, his mother and a few others — 
these were all he had known before he was summoned to his 
father's grave. Two months elapsed and his mother married 
her husband's brother. The discovery of the murder of his 
father by his uncle, his mother's marriage, were enougli to 
make him lose faith in men and become disgusted with the 
world. He is morally deranged. Already in his soliloquy : 
" O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt," etc., there 
are earnests of hallucination. After the Ghost appears he is 
in a state of frenzy, he staggers, his knees are knocking 
togetlier, liis teeth chattering — indications of the monomania 
to come. Taine thinks that in this state Hamlet had no need 
to look for " wild and whirling words" — -he could utter 
none other. Hamlet is the child of events — borne along 
he has no control over circumstances. With him the Ghost 
need not have objectivity — it already existed as a subjec- 
tive reality. 

Mr. Hudson, by a sort of eclectic process, has devised a 
theory of Hamlet from the different opinions of Shaksperian 
scholars, Goethe, Schlegel, Coleridge, etc., and has succeeded, 
we think, in culling a good deal of truth, though we differ 
wkh him on the score of Hamlet's madness. Hudson finds 
the opinions of the above mentioned critics inadequate to 
express Hamlet's character. They have each looked at 
Hamlet from one particular point of view. Mr. Hudson 
thinks that Hamlet was not lacking in capacity for acting, as 
is shown by the quickness with which he sent Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern to tlieir just doom — by his determined 
resolve to break all connection with Ophelia, hard though it 
might be, and the carrying out cf that resolution, though 
seeing how disastrous would be the consequences. His 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 45 

opinion, and I agree with him, is that Hamlet's hesitation to 
kill his uncle arose not from excessive thinking, not from 
lack of strong will, determination, but rather from the struggle 
which takes place in every noble heart when contemplating 
such a deed. I think Hamlet the nobler for this struor^le, 
and if he had killed Claudius without any scruple, one might 
entertain a doubt as to whether he himself was as noble and 
good as he should be. To do his father's will was Hamlet's 
greatest desire. From his memory he had promised to wipe all 
" trivial fond records," and write there only the revenge of his 
father's death, and yet the still " small voice " of conscience 
kept crying to be heard, questioning the right, the justice of 
taking the life of one who to him was more than kin. He 
knows not but that the Ghost may be some evil spirit in a 
pleasing shape come to "abuse him in order to damn him." 

When Hamlet finds Claudius praying, though thirsting for 
revenge, he does not kill because he thinks it will only be 
sending him to heaven, while in his memory is branded as 
with a scorching iron the picture of his " dear father mur- 
thered," condemned to '' sulphurous and tormenting flames." 
That last '' Remember me " rings in his ear, he cannot forget 
it. It would not be revenge then to murder Claudius as he 
kneels in prayer, 'twould be " hire and salary," and so Hamlet 
delays revenge. 

[6 1.] In giving the views of the above writers, I have in 
general expressed my own. 

62. Hamlet's levity, after the interview with the Ghost, is 
due to the terrible shock which the revelation of his father's 
murder produced — a thing which he may have suspected, 
but had not definitely known. I dare say any of us would be 
stunned were we to receive such a message from the other 
world. Deep grief, coupled with sucli a revelation, seems to 



46 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

shake his whole frame, his deHcate, sensitive soul. His 
words are like the smile, or hysterical laugh of a dying man, 
and his mind, which luill ever be active, when not in a 
heakhy state, will produce unwholesome thoughts. No dis- 
resDect is intended towards his father, whose ghost he calls 
" old mole^'' " truepenny,''^ and the like — 'tis a jest of one in 
torture, in agony, pale, a ghastly smile on his countenance. 

This, to me, seems the cause of Hamlet's levity on this 
occasion. 

63. Does Hamlet, or Horatio, say " the rest is silence "? 
It seems to me these words should belong to Horatio, 

though they are generally given to Hamlet. They accord so 
well with everything that Horatio ever said, with the whole 
tenor of his life. No bursts of grief ever came from him, 
always sane, calm in exterior, he bore alike the smiles and 
buffets of fortune, and when the soul of Hamlet wings its 
flight — perhaps as he is muttering, *' O, I die Horatio," 
etc., and before he is able to finish, Horatio adds *' the rest 
is silence " ; words so calm, yet with a depth of meaning in 
them. " Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," Horatio 
continues. 

64. I do not see how it is possible to decide whether the 
flowers Ophelia distributed were real or imaginary. There 
is no internal evidence to decide. 

65. I do not think that the Queen was accessory to her 
husband's murder, or knew anything at all about it until the 
deed had been done. The Ghost, though it reproaches her 
for her faithlessness to him, her frailty, does not intimate that 
she was at all implicated in his murder. Again, it is not prob- 
able that Claudius, a man of considerable intellect, would 
disclose to Gertrude his intention of killing her husband, to 
whom she seemed to be devoted. 'Twould not be a very 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 4/ 

safe method of procedure. When the king rises, nnfeignedly 
surprised, disturbed and excited by the player king and 
queen, surely Gertrude, a woman, would have felt the stings 
of conscience, the pangs of remorse, and would have given 
some indication of her guilt had she really been in the plot 
to murder her husband, for " conceit in weakest bodies 
strongest works." Again, when in their interview Hamlet 
tells his mother that his killing Polonius is " almost as bad 
as kill a king and marry with his brother," she exclaims in 
true innocence and amazement, " As kill a king ! " When 
her heart was so wrung by Hamlet, we doubt not but that she 
would have declared herself guilty of the crime if she really 
were. 

66. Was Hamlet mad? 

Despite what commentators have to say on the subject, I 
cannot think Hamlet mad. That he was deeply moved 
with grief, afflicted with melancholy, hypochondria, I agree, 
but that Hamlet's mind, his intellect, was at all affected, I 
cannot entertain for a moment. I think he was morally 
affected, not mentally, and his madness, as he himself says, 
was feigned, and I f^iil to see how his feigning madness so well 
could prevent it from being distinguished from a real case of 
the disease, as some commentator supposes, for I am sure the 
poet presents Hamlet to us more than once as the most sane 
of men. He does at all times put on an "antic disposition." 
With Horatio, his only true friend, he casts aside this mask 
of insanity, and his eagerness to be alone, when he would not 
be compelled to assume the guise of madness, when he can 
commune with his own thoughts, and be himself, certainly 
indicates saneness of mind. "Oh ! these tedious old fools 1 " 
he exclaims, when Polonius leaves, and he is alone. 

Again when the players — when Rosencrantz and Guilden- 



48 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

stern retire, Hamlet exclaims : " Now I am alone ! " and 
falls into a reverie, that is not born of madness — then devises 
a means for " catching the conscience of the king." 

Hamlet's conversation with his mother, though his words 
be " wild and whirling " — metaphor following metaphor — 
is most sane. The frenzy of grief is over him — nothing 
more. This exhortation to his mother is not the voice of a 
madman. 'Tis an earnest heart, sending up a prayer that 
the one whom he had through all his youth cherished may 
be reclaimed from sin and error. 

Again the king — the one guilty of the murder of Hamlet's 
father — is the only one who at all suspects that Hamlet's 
madness is feigned ; and I think it should be so, for he, 
whose hand was stained with a brother's blood, would no 
doubt watch closely Hamlet's every movement, and words 
that Hamlet uttered, though unintelligible to others, were to 
him fraught with the deepest meaning. 

Hamlet's rushing into Ophelia's presence, seizing her by 
the arm, staring long into her face, some think is madness. 
I find no insanity in it. Perhaps in solitude, the desperate- 
ness of his condition and his grief overpowered him, he 
rushed in to learn if Opheha could keep his secret, and help 
him bear the burden of his grief, if she still were true to him, 
and were not leagued on the side of his enemies — a tool in 
their hand ; or, even more. 

As eye meets eye in agony he reads in the depths of her 
soul her incapability of sharing his sorrows. Not a word is 
said, 'tis the first great silence of this king of words, — the 
second is death, and this silence expresses more than a 
volume of words. Those who favor the view of Hamlet's 
being mad generally hold that position because they think 
his treatment of Ophelia would be brutal and fiendish were 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 49 

he not mad, but as it will be seen Hamlet had manifold 
and good reasons for acting as he did towards Ophelia. 
Could any one say that Hamlet, in his conversation with 
Horatio, Act HI. Scene ii., has stra3^ed from sanity, that his 
words are not full of sobriety and good judgment? These 
are not qualities of madness. 

Surely, Shakspere would not have put into the mouth of 
a madman such superb, profound thoughts, such exquisite, 
far-reaching speculative soliloquies. His depth of character 
and of mind seem to me incompatible with madness. Albeit a 
certain commentator says that madness and the richest 
intellect may exist in harmony, — that is not madness. Of 
course by the suppression of one faculty predominance is 
given to another, which is thereby sharpened and its action 
quickened. If such a one is mad, then are all mad, for in 
none is there such a balance of faculties. Different occupa- 
tions and pursuits require different powers of mind. 

" Had I but time — as that fell sergeant, death, is strict in 
Ills arrest," says Hamlet, " O, I could tell you." Again he 
says to Horatio, " absent thee from feUcity awhile to tell my 
story." What story could it be, if, as the world thought, Ham- 
let was mad, and things were as they seemed? 

Because Hamlet said things incomprehensible to us, I 
cannot think him mad. One must not presume to know the 
heights nor sound the depths of his soul, and we may rejoice 
that we get but a vague, dim outline of the story he so 
earnestly prayed Horatio to tell to the unknowing world 
when he himself was dead. 

[67.] I think Hamlet's conduct towards Ophelia perfectly 
justifiable knowing the circumstances of his life, how, through 
the frailty of his mother — whom no doubt he had loved 
devotedly, and the only woman whom he had known inti- 



50 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

mately except Ophelia — he had seen the whole of woman- 
kind. This of itself would be sufficient to disgust him with 
the whole sex, and to make him infer that the rest were no 
better than his mother. Again, the tie between parent and 
child in those days was closer, stronger than now. Hamlet 
felt himself obliged to perform the duty imposed upon him 
by his father. He knew that Ophelia would likewise be com- 
pelled to comply with her father's desires, and that father 
was his enemy, in the service of the king. Ophelia's father 
would no doubt interrogate her concerning Hamlet, and force 
her to yield up his secret, or tell whatever she knew of his 
true state of mind, and hence it is that he acts the madman 
before her, stinging her with bitter sarcasms. 

Perhai)s also Hamlet kept his real state of mind from 
Ophelia because he did not wish to poison her own pure 
heart, to make her taste of that bitter cup which he himself 
was to drain to the dregs. 

No doubt Hamlet was devoted to Ophelia, but, as we said, 
he held his duty to his fother above all other ties ; one must 
not think, however, that he lightly, heartlessly broke the con- 
nection between himself and Ophelia. He bore his grief with 
manliness, she, a more delicate and sensitive nature, ended 
life in hopeless insanity. 

We have heard some sanctimonious people say that even 
if Hamlet was oppressed by grief amounting almost to agony, 
although it was good policy to keep from Ophelia, and con- 
sequendy from the king, his plans, yet nothing can justify 
him in his brutal treatment of Ophelia. Human nature cries 
to be heard at such an accusation, and it will manifest itself 
in spite of everything. If for ten years one should stand 
gazing up at the clouds to refine and purify his soul, and so 
far forget the world as to almost extinguish human passions, 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 5 I 

even then one would not be an angel. Man will be human 
— he cannot submit so quietly always to destiny with a " Thus 
saith the Lord." Human feelings and human motives will 
come into play. 

I have neither given nor received information on this 
examination. 

Emma A. T^Iertins. 



58. Goethe's view of Hamlet, in brief, is that he is a most 
lovely, pure, and moral nature without the strength of nerve 
that makes a hero — sinking beneath the weight of a task 
which is to him an impossibility. To him all duties are holy, 
the present is too hard ; he winds and twists, now advancing 
to the accomplishment of his purpose, and as often recoiling, 
until, at last, in his indecision, his purpose all but fades from 
his thoughts. He likens Hamlet, or Hamlet's mind, to a 
beautiful vase which should have borne a rose in its bosom but 
has instead an oak tree planted in it. As the roots expand 
the frail receptacle trembles, and at last lies a shattered ruin. 

59. Coleridge's idea is that Hamlet is a being. gifted by 
nature with noble mental and moral endowments ; a man 
whom we admire, yea reverence, and whom we would fain 
know and understand, but whose hidden springs of thought 
and action resist our utmost efforts of penetration. He com- 
pares him to a mighty stream whose surface-objects we can see, 
but can only guess as to the unfathomable depths below. 

[60.] Taine's idea is that all of Shakespeare's great crea- 
tions are the victims of some species of monomania, as in the 
cases of Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet. Pie thinks that 
Hamlet's is a case of moral poisoning. His nature is of a 
high moral tone, so delicately sensitive to impressions from 



52 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

without, that where no tangible evidence of things existed 
his powerful imagination supplied its want. Upon such a 
nature, the mystery surrounding his father's death and the 
evident defection of his mother, were enough to conjure up 
such images in his brain that the revelations of his father's 
ghost were scarcely more than seals to his haunting fancies. 
These ideas prey so sorely upon his moral nature that his 
mind fairly totters under the strain. He becomes a prey to 
morbid thoughts which tinge the whole universe with their 
dark colors, so that everything becomes distorted to his 
mental vision. Reason remains, but the mind is so loosely 
hinged tliat it sways horribly under every added shock. His 
father's ghost appears and he is aroused to dedicate his life 
to vengeance, but resolution and action are alike lost in the 
fatal melancholy which palsies every faculty. 

Mr. Hudson gives a very exhaustive and common-sense 
view of Hamlet's character, which is ripe with the study of 
3^ears and with a practical directness that charms us with its 
reality. He thinks that we become acquainted with Hamlet 
as we do with persons around us -^ that is, that we know 
him progressively, and that our views of him change as we 
reach different stages and experiences of our own lives ; and 
thus his varied and complete personality appeals to the feel- 
ings and sympathies of all. He says that it often happens 
that the more we study Hamlet, the less we shall feel that we 
understand him. Just so we often find it in our own lives ; 
we are often completely astonished by some new revelation 
in the life of a friend whom we have known for years, per-> 
haps all our lives, which causes us to realize how little we can 
ever know of the inner lives of those around us. Mr. Hudson 
says, very truly, that Shakespeare has painted Hamlet in sen- 
timents and manners far in advance of his age, and even of 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 53 

his immediate surroundings, as we see in the play : for 
instance, how bitterly he deplores the drinking customs of his 
countrymen — and, besides, his superior moral elevation 
which made him averse to shedding blood (of which we see 
he was only capable in moments of strongest excitement). 
He accounts for Hamlet's apparent weakness of purpose 
partly by the peculiar difficulties of his situation. . Should he 
kill the king, he would be committing in the eyes of the 
world the very crime which he desired to avenge. For who 
would believe the testimony of a Ghost, whose ghastly reve- 
lations no mortal ear but his own had heard? But Mr. 
Hudson believes that Hamlet is mad, and devotes much of 
his argument to proving that fact, backing his views by scien- 
tific and philosophical opinions from learned authorities 
versed in mental phenomena. He thinks that Hamlet is the 
victim of a peculiar and subtle type of insanity, which, being 
perfectly compatible with seasons of entire sanity, only 
attacks him at certain times and under certain circumstances. 
A madness which the person is perfectly aware of, and which 
he would guard if possible from the knowledge of others. 
So Hamlet, when his reason has been dethroned by the 
awful revelations of the Ghost, meets his friends with uncon- 
trollable and idiotic ravings, which, as he becomes calmer, he 
seeks to excuse, by hinting that, at some future time, he may 
see fit to assume madness, for a purpose which he cannot 
explain. 

Again — Mr. Hudson notices that Hamlet is violently 
affected by meeting certain persons who naturally call up 
excising thoughts ; as, for instance, the King, Polonius and 
Ophelia ; the first as the author of all his woe — Polonius as 
being perhaps accessory to the plot against his father, 
and certainly as influencing Ophelia against him, and hurt 



54 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

and angry at rebuffs which he had received from the 
latter, and perhaps suspecting her as a wiUing tool in the 
hands of his two enemies in the plot against him. In tins 
way he (Mr. H.) explains Hamlet's silly badgering of the 
puzzled old courtier, his malicious mockery of the king, and 
his cruel violence towards Ophelia, in all of which cases he 
is, as it were, beside himself, literally crazy for the time being, 
and only becomes himself again when the irritating cause is 
removed. 

[6 1.] I agree fully with Mr, Hudson in his estimate of 
Hamlet's character (independently of his madness), which I 
have tried (tho' with imperfect success, his views being 
so exhaustive) to sketch. I think with him that Hamlet's 
intense humanity is that which above all things endears him 
to us, that in Hamlet's woes we learn to sympathize as with a 
brother man, and it seems to me that if we try to estimate 
his character exactly as we do those of other men around us 
we shall find its inconsistences due to those human weak- 
nesses that are common to all. Hamlet is a man in whom 
we find the noble qualities of mind and heart, which we are 
led, from the implied rather than expressed testimony of the 
play, to attribute to the murdered king, allied to the womanly 
delicacy and weakness of will which we discover in the foir, 
frail Gertrude. Thus we find him, though recognizing the 
sacredness of the duty imposed upon him, voluntarily 
resigning all the happy memories of the past, the possibilities 
of the future, to dedicate himself alone to vengeance ; yet, 
in the next instant, we hear the wail of human agony : 

"The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right ! " 

At one time we find him listening with cool disdain and con- 
tempt, showing not a trace of the angry passion that the long, 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 55 

unfeeling harangue of his " uncle-father," must have stirred 
within him — anon we would scarcely recognize him as the 
same man, when alone he pours out, in abject sorrow, the 
woes of his unhappy soul. It is mostly in these soliloquies 
that we see best the wonderful depths of Hamlet's character ; 
they are as mirrors of the soul, in which we see at the same 
time his greatest strength as well as bis greatest weakness, 
— his noble sense of duty, his brave resolves to overcome 
the weakness that paralyzed his actions, and at the same 
time his vain longings for rest and quiet, for deliverance 
from this very duty. The fact is, that Hamlet saw so clearly 
what the result of an action would be, that he would, for fear 
of a future evil, neglect the present good. But we like, besides 
this, to think that Hamlet was morally incapable of deliber- 
ately performing a deed of murder, that it was only by a 
sudden emergency that he was capable of sending into that 
" undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller 
returns," the soul of his fellow-man. 

62. That itwasthe natural result of the tremendous shock 
to his nervous system, which Hamlet experienced from the 
revelations of the ghost, added to the necessity he felt of con- 
cealing his real feelings from his friends. "We often observe 
similar reactions where the mind has been subjected to an 
unnatural tension, and seeks to relieve itself. Sometimes we 
see it in the form of hysterical laughter, sometimes in 
unmeaning talk, or anything that is foreign to the subject on 
which the mind is brooding. As we notice in Hamlet, while 
he is nervously awaiting the appearance of the ghost, he talks 
of the weather, of the hour, of the King's revel, moralizes on 
the drinking habits of his countrymen, ' — anything but the 
ghost. 

6 7,. I think that these words should properly belong to 



56 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 

Horatio, though either interpretation may be maintained. 
Hamlet has said above in Hnes 320-21 : 

" Had I but time — as this fell sergeant, death, 
Is strict in his arrest — O, I could tell you." 

If these words be attributed to him, I think they would 
probably mean a repetition of the same idea, a sad regret 
that he is unable to clear up the mystery that clings around 
his life and death. On the other hand, if we attribute these 
words to Horatio, which I think more natural (in that Ham- 
let must have felt satisfied that his story would be safe in the 
keeping of this faithful friend), I think it is susceptible of a 
two-fold meaning — either somewhat of the same meaning 
that it has from Hamlet's lips, that death prevents his further 
utterance, or it is as a sigh of relief from this loyal friend, who 
has witnessed with a harrowed soul this awful and unexpected 
finale, that silence has at last fallen upon the scene. 

64. I think it is more entirely in consonance with the 
representation of Ophelia's madness to suppose that the 
flowers are real. She is represented as singing snatches of 
old songs, and her mind seemingly only sensible to impres- 
sions from within, insensible to those from without. She 
seems to have lapsed into the past and to recall those old 
songs and stories which she had heard in childish days ;' so 
it seems to me, that, as a child, she would have gathered the 
flowers which she is represented as distributing. Besides we 
have very significant proof of their reality in the description 
of her death by the Queen, who speaks of her as having 
" fantastic garlands " of flowers, with which she sought to 
crown the *' envious slivered willow." 

65. I think not, for Gertrude does not possess the force 
of character which one to do a deed like this must have. 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 57 

We find Gertrude "the beauteous majesty of Denmark," a 
woman of exceeding grace and courtesy of manner ; a fasci- 
nating woman who has inspired such idolatrous love in the 
hearts of two men, that the one remembers her even beyond 
the graX^e, the other, for love of her, has sold his soul. A 
woman who, at best, could so dishonor the memory of a noble 
man whom she had loved, as such a heart could love and 
could so far forget her own self-respect as to marry another 
"within a month." And this from the weakness of a charac- 
ter which could not say *' no " and stand to it. It might be 
said that such a woman could be brought to commit almost 
any crime, but I think that Gertrude shows a moral cowardice 
which rendered her incapable of such a crime as murder. 
In her interview with Hamlet, the woman who was to have 
taxed him with his " pranks," soon sinks in abject remorse 
and begs mercy of him who has shown her her true self in 
colors so dark that she cannot bear the sight. But in that 
interview I think she clears herself of the guilt of her hus- 
band's murder. What denial could be more emphatic than 
her amazed repetition of Hamlet's words : " As kill a King ! " 
She has also, I think, proved her innocence at the play, where 
the King, who has before this worn a '' front of brass " to the 
world, rises in the uncontrollable anguish of a suddenly 
aroused conscience and rushes from the scene ; we have no 
sign of guilt from this weak woman who shortly after quailed 
before Hamlet's charges. 

66. I do not agree with Mr. Hudson that Hamlet is mad, 
and I can best express my views on this subject by attempt- 
ing to answer his instances of what he considers Hamlet's 
madness. I think in the first place that Hamlet's hint to 
Horatio, Bernardo and Marcellus, that at some future time 
he might assume madness, was literally and simply what he 



58 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET, 

meant to do. Even while the ghost was speaking, Hamlet, 
with that keenness of foresight with which he was so pecul- 
iarly gifted, saw as in a vision the difficulties of the position 
into which destiny forced him. He suddenly thinks of, and 
as quickly decides upon madness as the cloak under which 
disguise his plans may be matured. Again, his sudden mad- 
ness at sight of Polonius and the king is perfectly consistent 
with his intention of deceiving them, and surely we cannot 
be surprised at the evident malice and deliberate contempt 
which he shows towards the former, the keen ridicule with 
which he dares to chafe the latter. Mr. Hudson thinks too 
that the keen womanly perception of the Queen and Ophelia 
would not have been deceived by the i^retended lunacy of 
Hamlet. On the contrary it seems to me that these two, of 
all others, would have been most easily deceived. Gertrude 
we find represented as a woman of a yielding, plastic nature, 
susceptible to all impressions, and this, added to the natural 
anxiety of a mother, would cause her to be easily misled by 
signs which to a disinterested eye would seem but trifles. 
Ophelia is only a young girl, one whom her father calls a 
"green girl," one who besides her intense love for Hamlet 
reverences him as a hero. She woirld be the last to suspect 
him of deceit. Turning from Hamlet's madness to the posi- 
tive evidences of his sanity, what could be more reasonable, 
more complete, more adapted to the purpose than Hamlet's 
admirable advice to the players? What could be more 
ingenious, more carefully planned than his plot to catch " the 
conscience of the king"? What could be more genial, 
more whole-souled, more sane and natural than his noble 
tribute to Horatio? But why multiply instances? In short, 
I think that Shakespeare did not intend to lower so noble a 
conception as the character of Hamlet, but that he is only, 
as Hamlet says for himself, " mad in craft." 



EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 59 

[67.] Some one has truly said that Shakespeare's dramas 
arc of a two-fold nature — the visible drama or that which 
appears on the surface, and the invisible, which we can only 
perceive when we study for ourselves the characters and 
attempt to appreciate their motives. I think that reading, as 
it were between the lines, in the famous scene between 
Ophelia and Hamlet, we may see that he acted the part of a 
real Iiero in his seeming cruelty. We cannot think that his 
conduct was that of a degraded trifler, ruthlessly trampling 
upon the holiest feelings of the gentle girl before him, nor 
that his cruel words were those of a madman, however glad 
we feel to think that Ophelia solaced her bleeding heart with 
the thought that it was Hamlet's madness, and not Hamlet, 
that had spoken thus. It was impossible that the old rela- 
tion should continue, and feeling this, as an honorable man, 
the stern duty of sundering the tie between them devolved 
upon Hamlet. He would fliin perform the task as shortly 
and effectually as possible, and we .feel in our hearts that the 
cruel words : " I loved you not," were as full of pain to the 
speaker as to the hearer. Who can doubt the reality of his 
words at the open grave of Ophelia : " I loved Ophelia ; forty 
thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, 
make up my sum." 

I have neither given nor received information on this 
examination. 

Hannah Wilson. 



60 EXAMINATION IN HAMLET. 



Castell Farm, Beddgelert, N. Wales, 
September 8, 1881. 

My Dear Sir: — 

After a long morning's ramble . . . over the hills in this beautiful 
region, I read . . . the two printed Examination Papers and answers 
by Miss Wilson and Miss Mertins, that you have just sent me. 

My first feeling was one of regret, that for so trifling a prize as the 
"New Shakspere Society" can afford to give to each of the thirty Col- 
leges and Schools that have them — only a yearly guinea's worth of its 
Publications — you should have gone to the expense of printing this 
pamphlet of thirty-six pages. 

My second feeling was one of satisfaction, that your Examination 
Papers were not . . . mere cram-questions, but contained at least 
seven questions which implied your belief that your pupils had minds as 
well as memories, and could form an opinion of their own on the chief 
characters of the play. 

My third feeling was one of pleasure at the general goodness of the 
answers, and at the fact that the Answerers tho' evidently overpow- 
erd and opprest by Hudson's view of Hamlet, had yet judgment and 
independence enough to reject Hudson's notion of Hamlet's madness, 
and see that it ruins the character. Neither of the Answerers has appre- 
hended ihe purport of the play as I see it, that God zvill have his pur- 
poses carried out, and zvill make this jibing, kicking Hamlet pass the 
goal of his uncle's death though he dies himself in the effort, — see my 
Introduction to the " Leopold Shakspere," — but I think the answers so 
good on the whole that I ask Mr. Griggs to post you two copies of the 
Fac-simile Hamlet quartos first and second, and shall feel obliged if 
you will hand one couple to Miss Wilson and the other to Miss Mertins, 
with my best wishes. The Society's books will reach you in due course. 

With best wishes for the success of your classes and College, and 
heartfelt hopes that your noble and long-suffering President Garfield 
may soon be restord to health, I am truly yours, 

F. J. FURNIVALL. 
To Prof. Wm. Taylor Thom. 



SHAKESPEARE 

PRIZE EXAMINATION. 

HOLLIXS INSTITUTE, VA. 
1882. 



NOTE. 

The Shakespeare Prize was awarded to Miss N. B. Bowman, of Lynch- 
burg, Virginia, upon an examination in Macbeth. Miss Bowman was allowed 
to refer to the unannotated text of Macbeth, and also of Hamlet and King 
Lcai\ as given in the "Globe" Shakespeare. She wrote without knowing 
what the questions were to be, and without assistance, and her papers are 
herewith given as she wrote them, four or five unimportant corrections 
excepted. 

This Examination was given to show the best results attained in the study 
of Shakespeare in the Institute, and will be forwarded to the " New Shak- 
spere Society" of England, whose prize for the encouragement of the study 
of Shakespeare was awarded this school last year on a similar examination 
in Hamlet. 

Respectfully, 

Wm. Taylor Thom, 
Prof. English La??guage and Literature. 
HOLLIN3 Institute, 
Roanoke Co., Va., June, 1882. 



PRIZE EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 



HoLLiNS Institute, Virginia, June, 1882. 



TEXTUAL. 

1. When was Macbeth first published, and in what form? 

2. At what period in Shakespeare's artist life would the general 
style and characteristics of verse place the play? 

3. How are the upward and downward limits of the date of the play 
fixed? 

4. \Yhat incident may have suggested the subject of JMacbelh to 
Shakespeare? 

5. Dowden, following Malone, places the date of the play about 
what year, and on what internal evidence? 

6. What is the opinion of the Clarendon Press editors on this sub- 
ject? 

7. Whence did Shakespeare get the materials of the play? 

8. And what incidents, not belonging to the original story of Mac- 
beth, has he incorporated in the play? 

9. Is there anything historical in the play? 

10. What is the theory of the Clarendon Press editors as to interpo- 
lation, and by whom? 



11. Explain use of " ^" in 'V/ kerns and gallowglasses is sup- 
plied." I. ii. 13. 

12. Explain use of " 011 " in " eaten on the insane root." I. iii. 84. 

13. Explain constructions — " ^/^ zvVr*;'/;/^'- o'er the rest," (ic. I. iii. 
94; — "like the leaving \V I. iv. 8; — '^ old turning XhcVcy.''^ II. 
iii. 2. 

14. Explain force of " w/i£? " — " zaho was the thane lives yet." I. 
iii. 109. 



64 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

15. Explain construction — "as 'twere a careless trifle." I. iv. ii; 

— " as they had seen me." II. ii. 27; — '^Ait'i please heaven he shall 
not." III. vi. 19. 

16. Explain construction — "a careless trifle." I, iv. 1 1 ; — " si<^/U- 
/ess substances." I. v. 47. 

17. Explain use of "/f " — "the late dignities heaped up a'o them." 
I. vi. 19; "And /(? that dauntless temper of his mind." III. i. 51. 

18. What is peculiar in the adjective use in " Unto omx gentle senses " ? 
I. vi. 3 ; — "eaten on the insane root "? I. iii. 84. 

19. Explain the use of ^^ but only'''' — " but only vaulting ambition." 

I. vii. 26. 

20. Explain " 7i'02ihr'' — "which would he worn now," &c. I. vii. 
34; — " That 7002/1(1 he howl'd out in the," Sec. IV. iii. 194. 

21. Construction of line, " Hear not my steps, which zaay they walkP 

II. i. 57. 

22. Explain form gives, " Words to the heat of deeds too cool breath 
gives r II. i. 61. 

23. Illustrate power of conversion of parts of speech by " Hath trijled 
former knowings.^'' II. iv. 4. 

24. Explain " Go not my horse the better." III. i. 25, 

25. Explain ^^ while then, God be with you." III. i. 43. 

26. "There is none (^z^/ he." III. i. 53. 

27. "Unsafe the while, that we must lave," &c. III. ii. 32. 

28. Explain " Imposters to true fear." III. iv. 64. 

29. Explain " To knozo my deed, 'twere best not know myself." II. 
ii. 73; — "To fright you thus methinks I am too savage." IV. ii. 70; 

— " blame his pester'd senses to recoil and start." V. ii. 22. 



30. What is the meaning of "Aroint thee, witch ! " ? I. iii. 6. 

31. What beliefs are suggested in — 

" But in a sieve I thither sail, 
And like a rat without a tail "? I. iii. 8-9. 

32. AVhat is the meaning oi fantastical in "are ye fantastical ?^^ I. 
iii. 53; — "whose murder yet is hvX fatitasticar^l I. iii. 139. 

33. What was a harbinger ? I. iv. 45; and z. purveyor ? I. vi. 22. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 65 

34. Explain — 

" Herein I teach you 
How you shall bid God ''ild iis for your pains, 
And thank us for your trouble." I. vi. 12-14. 

35. Explain " if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, 
and catch with his surcease, sticcess?'' I. vi. 2-4. 

36. Explain *' That memory, the zvarder of the brain shall be ^fuine^ 
and the receipt of reason a limbec only." I. vii. 65-67. 

37. What is the meaning of ^'' travelling lamp'''' 1 II. iv. 7. 

38. INIeaning of "Nature's copy's not eterne" ? III. ii. 38. 

39. What is meant by " Our hostess keeps her state " ? III. iv, 5, 

40. Explain " wile lies'' imunmyy IV. i. 23. 

41. What is meant by "the blood-bolter' d '^ZiViO^o "? IV. i. 123. 

42. What courtier-like reference does Shakespeare make in bringing 
in " the evil " ? IV. iii. 146. 

43. Explain the meaning of " rise from her bed, throw her night- 
gown upon her." V. i. 4. 

44. Explain — 

" For their dear causes 
W'ould to the bleeding and the grim alarm 
Excite the mortified man?'' V. ii. 3-5. 

45. Meaning of "/(?j/ifr'rt^ senses"? V. ii. 23. 
46- Explain — 

** They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, 
But, bear-like, I must fight the cotirseP V. vii. 1-2. 



I. Macbeth was first published in the foho of 1623, where 
it comes between Julius CcBsar and Hamlet, occupying pages 
131-151 inclusive. 

It was divided into acts and scenes, and the text, though 
not so corrupt as in some other plays — Coriolamis for exam- 
ple — was yet very defective as regards division of lines. 
The Clarendon Press editors conjecture that it was printed 
from a transcript, not copied from the author's INIS., but 



66 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

written to dictation, since many of the errors are palpably 
those of the ear, not of the eye. 

That it had not been published at an earlier date appears 
from the fact that it is entered by Blount and Jaggard in the 
Stationers' Record in 1623, as "one of the plays not before 
given to other men." 

This folio itself is interesting, being " the first edition of 
Shakespeare's collected works, as set forth by his friends and 
fellows, John Heminge and Henry Condell." They speak 
contemptuously of certain "stolen and surreptitious copies," 
referring to some of the quartos, and claim that their work 
is printed from the original MS. It is certain, however, that 
in some instances the plays of the folios were printed from 
earlier quartos. Yet, in spite of the failure to realize the 
editors' claim, this folio is of great value — not only because 
in certain points superior to the quartos, but because it con- 
tains eighteen plays not found in quarto form. 

This folio was dedicated to the earls of Pembroke and 
Montgomery, and contained all the plays found in modern 
editions, save Pei'icles. 

In 1632 was published the second folio — a reprint of the 
first conjecturally emended, the emendations being more 
often wrong than right. 

The third folio (1664) contained seven additional plays 
not found in the first, all of which, with the exception of a 
part oi Pericles, are proved to be not Shakespeare's work. 

The fourth folio appeared in 1685. 

2, V/ith Dowden, dividing Shakespeare's dramatic career 
into four periods, embracing all together the twenty years 
and upwards between 1588 or 1590 and 161 2, the general 
style and characteristics of versification would place Macbeth 
in the third period, extending from 1601 to 1608, in which 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 6/ 

were produced the grave and bitter comedies and the great 
trajcdics — -believed by many to be but the reflection of the 
au'chor's own licart. 

Having passed through the period of apprenticeship and 
experiment, in whicli he was at once a diligent workman, 
and a bright and cheerful one, leaving this impress upon the 
works of this period, he next began to exercise his imagina- 
tion upon affairs of real life, and to perceive that there is 
'•' sterner stuff of poetry " in actual life than in all the pretti- 
ncsses and affectations which had sometimes led him astray 
in his earlier career. This is the second period in which 
he is '^ in the world''' — and of the world too. The works 
belonging to this period are the '•' joyous comedies " and the 
" historical plays." Before the close of this period he had 
known sorrow — death had removed some dear to him — 
his friend of the sonnets had wronged him. His imagination 
now finds employment in sounding the depths of the human 
heart, piercing the mysteries of evil itself. At this period it 
is that Macbeth is to be placed. It is one of the group of 
*•' Later Tragedies," along with Lca7' and Othello. 

3. The upward limit of the date of the play is fixed by 
the words of Macbeth, in Act iv. Sc. i. — 

"And some I see 
That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry." 

— which refer to the union of the two kingdoms of Great 
Eritain and Scotland, under James I., who -acceded to the 
English throne in j^Jarch, 1603, while the union took place 
ill October of the following year (1604). The play then 
could not have been written before this event. 

On April 20, 16 10, Dr. Simon Forman saw Macbeth acted 
at "the Globe/' and, in his Diary, he gives an elaborate 



68 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

description of the play. It was certainly, therefore, written 
before 1610. 

4. When King James visited Oxford in 1605, there was 
represented before him a Latin play or interlude on the sub- 
ject of Macbeth. Farmer thinks this may have suggested 
the subject to Shakespeare ; but the Clarendon Press editors 
think this not probable, believing that Holinshed furnished 
the material to the Latin dramatist as well as to Shakespeare, 
and in each case a subject was selected from Scottish history 
to i)lease the Scottish monarch, and Shakespeare's play 
would be none the less acceptable for representing the right- 
ful heir restored to his throne by a victorious English army. 

5. Dowden maintains that the characteristics of versifica- 
tion forbid us to place Macbeth after Pericles and Anthony 
and Cleopatra, or very near TJie Tempest. " Light end- 
ings " begin to appear in this play for the first time in any 
considerable number (twenty-one being the exact number). 
There are but two "weak endings." The predominance of 
light and weak endings and of double or feminine endings 
in a play is an indication that it is of Shakespeare's later 
works, when he was growing in freedom and naturahiess of 
style. On the other hand, rhyme, as a rule, indicates an 
early date. There are, however, exceptions, since condi- 
tions of the drama itself may sometimes require rhyme. 

Upon the whole, Dowden thinks the internal evidence 
favors the opinion of Malone (also adopted by Steevens and 
Chalmers), that the play was written about 1606. They all 
agree, as do Gervinus and Collier (upon second thought), 
that the reference to the union of the two kingdoms, men- 
tioned above, would have lost much of its force had the play 
not been written soon after. Again, in the Porter-Scene^ 
" the farmer who hanged himself upon expectation of 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 69 

plenty," is thought to be an allusion to the scarcity of corn 
in the autumn of 1606, and the " equivocator " to the trial, 
in 1606, of Henry Garnett, superior of the order of Jesuits, 
for implication in the gunpowder plot, and to his perjury on 
that occasion. Some base the argument further on the 
" tailor stealing out of the French hose," explaining it as a 
reference to the scantiness of pattern then fashionable in 
that article of apparel, as contrasted with former volumi- 
nousness. The habit of tailors in this respect seems to have 
been a common subject of ridicule. Finally, the practice of 
*' touching" for ''the evil" had been revived by James, 
which may throw some general light upon the date. 

6. The Clarendon Press editors maintain that the union 
of the two kingdoms was a matter of such importance that 
it would not soon pass from the minds of men. Therefore 
it is not necessary to suppose Macbeth written immediately 
after tliat event ; that the Jesuitical doctrine of equivocation 
was an established fact and common subject of complaint 
with ministers of the age, hence no need to suppose that it 
refers specially to Garnett. " The farmer who hanged him- 
self upon expectation of plenty " might refer to the abun- 
dant harvest of any other year as well as to the scarcity in 
1606. When Dr. Simon Forman sd^y Macbeth in 16 10, he 
would scarcely have been at the pains to make an elaborate 
summary of the plot, had it not been then a new play. 
Moreover, so great, at that time, was both the demand for 
and supply of new plays, that even the most popular had 
not such a run, nor were so frequently revived as at the pres- 
ent day. There is nothing to justify the inference, much less 
to prove that Macbeth was produced at an earlier date than 
this (16 10). In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the 
Burning Pestle," there is an obvious allusion to the ghost of 



70 . EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

Banquo, which also favors the view that Macbeth was then a 
new play and fresh in the minds of the people. 

7. Shakespeare got the materials of the play entirely from 
Holinshed's Chronicle, who in turn got them — through Bel- 
lenden's Scotch translation — from the '' Scotoriuii Histo- 
riae"" of Hector Boece (1465-1536), first principal of 
King's College, Aberdeen. Boece followed Fordun, adding 
to him largely. 

8. The details of Duncan's murder were taken from 
Holinshed's account of the murder of King Duffe by Don- 
wald, — an incident of earlier date. 

Between the histories of King Duffe and Donwald, and of 
Duncan and Macbeth, Holinshed has a few pages devoted 
to Kenneth, a brother and successor of Duffe, who in order 
to secure the throne to his own son, poisoned Malcolm, the 
son of Duffe. Holinshed relates how, at night, Kenneth 
heard a voice saying : " Think not, Kenneth, the murder of 
Malcolm Duffe, by thee contrived, is hidden from the eye of 
the living God." This probably is the original of the "ter- 
rible voice " of the murder scene in Macbeth. 

The incident of the death of Siward's son is taken from 
Holinshed's history of England. 

9. The Clarendon Press editors say the only points in 
which the drama coincides with real facts are the murder of 
Duncan and Macbeth's connection therewith (cither as prin- 
cipal or accessory), and the character of Lady Macbeth.' 

The rebellion of Macdonwald, and the invasion of Sweno, 
during the reign of Duncan, are fables, and Banquo and 
Fleance, ancestors of the Stuarts, are inventions of the 
chronicler. These editors declare it u diiiicult to make 
one's v/ay through the maze of tradition and fable v.'hich has 
come dov/n to us. The single point upon v/hich historians 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 7 1 

agree is that the reign of Macbeth was one of prosperity 
and vigorous government. 

lo. In 1779 Steevens — it is generally conceded to have 
been Steevens, I believe — discovered a manuscript play, 
"The Witch," by Thomas Middleton, which was found to 
bear a striking resemblance, in some respects, to Shake- 
speare's play of MacbetJi, so that the question of plagiarism 
was raised and discussed in a spirited manner. 

With reference to this, the Clarendon Press editors affirm 
that, were they convinced that Shakespeare wrote the whole 
of Macbeth, they would unhesitatingly pronounce Middleton 
the plagiarist. But, they go on to say, though the "least 
n^annered of all poets," Shakespeare has always a manner 
peculiar to himself, and there are some parts of MacbctJi in 
which we can find no trace of this manner. Some of these 
are Act I. Sc. ii. ; Sc. iii. 11. 1-37; Act II. Sc. i. 1. 61 ; Sc. iii. 
11. 1-47 (specially) ; Act III. Sc. v. ; Act IV. Sc. i. 11. 39-47 ; 
also 11. 126-132 ; Sc. iii. 11. 140-159 ; Act V. Sc. ii. ; Sc. v. 11. 
47-50; Sc. viii. 11. 32-33; and the last forty lines of the 
play. 

Having given what they think conclusive arguments in 
support of this opinion, they account for these passages 
upon one of two hypotheses — first, that Shakespeare wrote 
the play in conjunction with some one else as " collabora- 
tcur " — that having formed the general scheme, he reserved 
for himself those parts in which ^Macbeth and Lady Macbeth 
were to appear, and consigned the rest to l^.Iiddlcton, largely 
rc-writing and correcting the work of his assistant, though 
good-naturedly allov/ing some of l^.Iiddleton's suggestions in 
his own v.'ork. 

But these editors think that Shakespeare would never have 
permitted the second scene of Act I. to remain, so prefer the 



72 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

theory that, after the death of Shakespeare, or after his with- 
drawal from connection with the stage, some one — prob- 
ably Middleton — remodeled Macbeth — extending the parts 
assigned to the Weird Sisters, adding a new character, 
Hecate ; putting in the Porter Scene " to please the ground- 
lings "; possibly also substituting the scene of the "bleed- 
ing sergeant " for the supposed original conversation between 
Macbeth and Banquo. 



II. The difference between the Shakespearean and the 
modern usage as regards prepositions, and indeed many 
other words, may be often explained upon the principle of 
division of labor, which has been in action since that time. 
The manifold duties then performed by a single word, have 
been divided out amongst other words. Thus, " ^" origi- 
nally meant '^ from " — -a force still retained in the strong 
form " offy In the meaning ^' from,'' Shakespeare not only 
uses " of to express the agent from whom the action is 
regarded as proceeding — where we should use "^j'," — but 
also uses it to express the instrument, where we should use 
" withy Especially is this the case with verbs and adjectives 
of " constructing," " filhng," and the like, expressing not 
only the thing with which, but that out of which the thing is 
made. We still use " of' with verbs and adjectives of con- 
struction, and with adjectives of fullness. 

For ''of" in sense oi'' from " see Hamlet IH. iii. 31-33 — 

" 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother. 
Should o'erhear the speech, 'of vantage." 

In Hamlet IV. ii. 12 — " Besides, to be demanded ' of a 
sponge ! " where ' of denotes the agent. Ham. I. i. 25 — 
"This dreaded sight twice seen 'of us." And especially 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 73 

Lear III. ii. 59 — " More harder than the stones whereof 'tis 
raised." 

12. "On'' signified "juxtaposition/' — was frequently 
used for " </" in sense of " abcnit'' 

Compare the indifferent use of " on'' and ''''of" in Hamlet 
IV. V. 176-177 — • 

" God ha' mercy ^011 ' his soul ! 
And '0/' all Christian souls I pray God." 

So too, Hamlet III. ii. 8S-89 — 

" How fares our cousin Hamlet ? 
Excellent, i'faith; 'of the chamelion's dish." 

King Lear I. iv. 98-99 — 

" Why, this fellow has banished two on''s daughters." 

Hamlet I. i, 55 — 

" What think you onV." 

On in sense of about. 

13. "/;/ viewing o'er the rest," etc. As to the nature of 
these words in " ing," it seems difficult in some cases to 
determine whether they are nouns ox verbals. The history of 
these forms seems to be as follows. In Anglo-Saxon the 
verb had an abstract noun ending in " ung'' and a present 
participle in " ende'' which two forms later became confused. 
There was also a gerund or dative infinitive, ending in '' cnnef 
preceded by " tof and this too was confounded with the 
present participle, and thus with the noun. Finally, there 
resulted from all this confusion a single form in ''ing," hav- 
ing the force now of a noun — being both preceded by an 
adjective and followed by a preposition, as, " shaking of," 
Hamlet II. i. 92 — "At last a litUe shaking of my arm," etc., 
— but again of a verbal governing a direct object — "like 



74 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

the leaving it" j "old iurning the key," where the article and 
adjective preceding are accounted for by the confusion with 
the noun as explained above. 

The whole thing is a result of the general tendency towards 
the discarding of inflections and the simplification of gram- 
matical structure, so largely accelerated by Norman influence 
after the conquest in 1066. 

See Hamlet III. ii. 60 — 

" For thou hast been 
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing." 

" Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase." 

— Ham. I. V. 175. 
"As checking at his voyage." — Ham. IV. vii. 61. 

*' Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool." 

— King Lear I. iii. i. 
" Mumbling of wicked charms." — Lear II. i. 39. 

" One that slept in the contriving of lust." 

— Lear III. iv. 86. 

14. Who here illustrates the definite use of the relative, 
referring to a special person, compare the indefinite use in 
Othello : 

" WJio steals my purse steals trash." 

Who was originally the interrogative pronoun (A.-S. ^' hwa " 
masc. and fem., ^^ hwaef^ neuter) ; that was the relative 
(A.-S. se, seo, thaet). The transition from the interroga- 
tive to the relative meaning of '^ who''' may be illustrated 
by Heniy V. Act IV. Prologue : 

" O, now, who (interrog.) will behold 
The royal captain of this ruined band . . . ? 
Let hijn cry ' Praise and glory on his head ! ' " 

This would easily become, " Let him who (rel.) will behold," 
etc. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 75 

The lingering memory of the old interrogative force, when 
itwas used to standing alone, is shown in the omission of the 
antecedent. Omission of antecedent also explained by some 
as the result of the emphatic position of the relative. 

15. The usual explanation of the constructions makes ''as'' 
equivalent to "as if," ''an " (which they say is the impera- 
tive of " ?/;z;/<^;z," " to grant" — incorrect, since " ^;/ " and 
"and'' are the same word used interchangeably, meaning 
merely " with the addition of") equivalent to *' if." The foct 
is, the "if" — the contingency — is contained in the sub- 
junctive mood, which was formerly inflected and expressed 
alone all the subjunctive relations. After a while the same 
forgetfulness or disregard of the force of inflections which 
produced " more better," "most unkindest," etc., led to the 
insertion of " t/"" after "as," "an," etc. 

Compare : 

" Smile you my speeches as I 7oere a fool." 

— Lear II. ii. 78. 

" He must speak truth I Ait they will take it, so." 

— Lear II. ii. 95. 

" Aji thou hadsi been set in the stocks for that question." 

— Lear II. iv. 61. 

16. These words illustrate what Mr. Abbott calls the active 
or passive use of adjectives ending in less, ive, bic, etc. — 
such words being sometimes equivalent to an active partici- 
ple, again to a passive. Careless trifle, i.e. "uncared-for" 
trifle ; sightless substances — " invisible," that cannot be seen. 

Compare : 

" Without the sensible (that can be perceived by the senses) 
and true avouch of mine own eyes." 

— Hamlet I. i. 57. 



76 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

*'In dreadful (frightened) secrecy impart they did." 

— Hamlet I. ii. 207. 

"Let it be tenable (that may be retained) in your silence still." 

— Hamlet I. ii. 248. 

*' Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens 
The form ol plausive (pass.) manners." 

— Hamlet I. iv. 30. 

"Who I am sure is kind and covifortable (act.)." 

— Lear 1. iv. 297. 

" Scarf up the tender eye oi pitiful (act.) day : 
And with thy bloody and invisible (pass.) hand." 

— Macbeth UL ii. 47-48. 

17. ''To,'' radical meaning '' motion towards," hence 
"rest near," hence "addition," as here — " heaped up in 
addition to them ; "and in addition to that dauntless temper." 
This meaning gif " to " is now retained only with verbs of 
motion, and the strong form "too'' {cf. "of" and "off," 
above) alone has by itself the meaning of " in addition to.'* 
For " to " in this sense we use " besides." But Shakespeare 
could use " to " without any verb at all with this meaning of 
" in addition to." 

There were other forces of " to " arising from this radical 
notion of " motion towards," "rest near"; hence " by the 
side of," " in comparison with," " up to," " in proportion to," 
"according to" ; then "like," from which comes the inean- 
ing of "equivalent," "apposition," etc., as found in the ex- 
pression "taken to wife." Ham. L ii. 14. Meaning "motion" 
it comes, also, to mean "motion with a view to," "for a 
purpose" — 

" Worthy to be a rebel, for to that (end) 
The multiplying villanies of nature 

Do swarm upon him." — Macbeth I. ii. 10. 

" As flies to (compared to) wanton boys, are we to the gods, 

They kill us for their sport." — Lear IV. i. 38-39, 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 7/ 

1 8. These examples illustrate what is termed the "proleptic 
use" of the adjective. What would be fully expressed by a 
whole clause following the noun, is condensed into a single 
word and placed before the noun. " The insane root " — 
i.c.^ the I'oot which produces insanity (as the effect of eating 
it) ; — " our genfle senses " are our senses made gentle 
(sootlied) thereby — />., by the pleasant air. 

Compare — 

" And 'gins to pale his tcneffectjial fire." — Ham. I. vi. 90. 

19. The same forgetfulness of the original meaning of 
words, referred to above as producing " miore better," &c., 
led to the redundant use of " but only " = " only only." 

But — Early English and Modern Northern English 
''bout,'' A.-S., '' bi-utan,'' where ''^/" is modern by ; 
^^ i/tjn''' — out or without. Hence, hut is formed on the 
analogy of without, and meant '^ out take,'" ^'except,'''' — 
having force both of active participle governing the accusa- 
tive case, and of a passive participle taking a nominative 
absolute. (See below, 26th question : " There is none 
but her) 

All the meanings of but can be explained from the original 
meaning of " out take " or " except." Sometimes it was 
used to except a whole clause, for instance : — 

" And but she spoke it dying, I would not have believed her." 

This illustrates the transitional use of but from " except" 
to the adversative (the most common modern use) "on the 
contrary," " by way of prevention." Thus : " If she had not 
spoken (except she spoke) it dying, I would not believe," 
and again " I would not believe, but (adversative) she 
spoke," &c. 



y8 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

All uses of "/;?//" arise — i. From variation between the 
meaning of "except" and the adversative "on the other 
hand"; 2. From the fact tiiat the negative before /y/// is 
sometimes omitted — "but ten came," may mean " ten /i('7c/- 
ever came," or " none but ten " — i.e., only ten came. Thus 
" but only " of the question is shown to be no other than 
"' only only." 

" Bring me but to the very brink of it." 

— King Lear IV. i. 75. 

20. Would carries the idea of ivill, in the sense of ivish, 
pu/-^i>se. The attempt to realize a wish is very apt to take 
the form of a requirement. We wish a thing ; then consider 
the thing as a duty, obligation ; then require its performance. 
I. I would, 2. I should, 3. I must. 

In the examples " which would be worn now," " That 
would be howl'd out," there is conveyed the notion of 
requirement^ derived as described above ; showing that 
Shakespeare had not, though we have, forgotten the force of 
the A.-S. wilnian = to ivish, to requii'e. 

" It woidd be spoke to." — Hamlet I. i. 45. 

" That tvotdd be scanned." — Hamlet III. iii. 75. 

21. "Hear not my steps, which way they walk." An 
example of the redundancy of Shakespeare's language 
adopted for the sake of emphasis. He introduces a single 
(unnecessary) object, thus making the real clause-object a 
mere explanation of this intruding object. Compare his use 
of the double negative for the purpose of strength. 

" But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?" 
• — Ham. V. ii. 27. 

"I know you what you are." — Lear I. i. 262. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 79 

2 2. Mr. Abbott says the use of "gives " in this case is 
probably for the, sake of the rhyme. But this verbal inflec- 
tion in s, witli plural subjects, is a perfectly common occur- 
rence in Shakespeare's writings, and may be very readily 
explained. It is merely an additional instance of the linger- 
ing memory of the then rapidly disappearing, and now almost 
entirely gone, inflections of the Anglo-Saxon, and of the 
dialectic peculiarities of the Early English, where we find 
for the plural of verbs three forms, one in each dialect : 
Northern es, Midland e/i, Southern ef/i. Hence Shake- 
speare's apparently singular verbs are generally to be ex- 
plained as the natural and legitimate descendants of the old 
Northern plural in es. 

" All that /ivt's must die." — Ham. I. ii. 72. 

" For women's fear and love /lo/cfs quantity." 

— Ham. IH. ii. 142. 

"The great man down, you mark his favoritesy?/V^." * 

— Ham. IH. ii. 179. 

" What, /las his daughters brought him to this pass ! " 

— Lear HI. iv. 61. 

"Which very manners urges." — Lear V. iii. 235. 

23. There w^as the utmost license in this respect. Almost 
any part of speech could be used as any other part of 
speech, at pleasure. Formerly the infinitival termination 
(ALE. en (e), A.-S. an) could convert almost anything — 
noun, adjective, Szc, — into a verb. When this inflection 
Wcis lost, the power of conversation still remained, — nouns, 
adjectives, &c., being used as verbs — generally in an active 
sense — without any verbal termination at all. 

Besides, passive verbs were used as active verbs ; nouns, 

1 For this reading, c/. Furness, Far. Ham., and Abbott's Shak. Gram. 
§333- T. 



80 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

verbs, adjectives, participles, and even conjunctions, inter- 
changed in the most Hberal manner, ''^(verb) me no ifs 
(noun)." 

Here: "Hath trifled former knowings^' — trifled, an in- 
transitive verb used transitively, or, perhaps, a noun used 
as verb ; " knowings,^'' participle used as noun and given the 
plural inflection. 

" Gweno, the Norivays' king, craves composition." 

— Macbeth I. ii. 59. 

" N'oihiiig afeard of what thyself didst make." 

— Macbeth I. iii. 96. 

" So nightly toils the subject of this land." 

— Hamlet I, i. 72. 

" Shai-Jid up a list of lawless resolutesP 

— Hamlet I. i. 98. 

" Are of a most select and generous chief \n that." 

— Hamlet I. iii. 74. 

" In few y — Hamlet I. iii. 126. 

"As hush as death." — Hamlet H. ii. 471. 

"The honey of his music vows." — Hamlet HI. i. 156. 

" Dowered with our curse and straiigered with our oath." 

— Lear I. i, 196. 

"Thou losest here^ a better where to find." 

— Lear I. i. 253. 

" Straight took horse." — Lear H. iv. 34. 

"He childed 7is \ fathered'"' — Lear HL vi. 109. 

24. " Go not my horse the better." In go we have the old 
force of the subjunctive inflection, — not requiring "//"." 

" The " is the instrumental case of the old demonstrative 
or relative (A.-S. thi, the, from nom. se, seo, thaet). With 
comparatives, it is used to express the measure of excess or 
defect. In this use the varies between the meanings, " on 
this account," "therefore," "in this way." 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 8 1 

Here we may explain (considering the distance), "'if my 
horse go not on that account better"; or, considering it a 
race between the night and the horse, *' Go not my horse the 
better of the two." 

25. " While'' used to be a noun meaning time [x\.-S. 
hioil = " time," dat. plur. hwilwn, whence E. E. adverb 
whilom, meaning /^r;;/^;-/)', a form still retained]. 

We may still hear, " he stayed a long while," where " while " 
means " time J' Generally, however, while with us means 
''during the time when " ; with Shakespeare it meant "up 
to the time that." Here, "while then" has a future si£rnifi- 
cation. 

26. "There is none but he'' = "there is none, he being 
excepted." (See answer to question 19, above.) 

27. "Unsafe the while, that (in which)." That, as rep- 
resentative of the Anglo-Saxon relative, se, seo, thaet, having 
itself lost the different case forms, nevertheless retains their 
force. An instance of "inflection lost, power retained." 
There is probably some ellipsis to be supplied in this sen- 
tence. "Unsafe (is) the while (time) (for us), that (in 
which)," &c. 

These ellipses are common in Shakespeare, who seems 
to have preferred brevity above everything ; then strength 
(clearness) ; lastly, if possible, grammatical correctness. 

28. " Impostors to true fear," i.e., compared to true fear. 
(For derivation of this use from radical meaning of "motion 
towards," see answer to question 17, above.) 

29. These examples illustrate what is termed the indefinite 
and general use of the infinitive. 

The old infinitive termination (A. -S. an; M. E. en) having 
been lost, it was replaced by "to," the sign of the old dative 
infinitive or gerund (which denotes purpose — cf. Latin use 



82 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

of ad With gerund), and this new infinitive form was used in 
a very general sort of way, retaining all the forces of both 
parent forms (infinitive proper, and gerund). Thus, in 
following cases : " To know my deed," the infinitive has a 
comparative force. " 'Twere best not know myself than 
know my deed — ." "If the knowing myself implies the 
knowing my deed, it would be better," &c. " To fright ^om 
thus " — " for frighting you," &c. 

" blame 
His pestered senses to recoil and start," 

for recoiling and starting. 

" Which being kept close, might move 
More grief to hide than hate to titter love." 

— Hamlet H. i. 119. 
"Could you on this fair mountain leave to feedP 

— Hamlet IH. iv. 66. 



30. "y^r^/;// thee, witch," — a form of dismissal or exor- 
cism when addressed to witches. Also used by milkmaids 
to their cows — "Aroint thee, lovey." Sometimes spelt rynt, 
runt. Various conjectures have been made as to the deri\-a- 
tion of the word. Perhaps it is of Icelandic root. Some 
have supposed it connected with the adverb " <:z;'C''?/;;z<? " = 
abroad (found in Chaucer). Others derive it from Latin 
'^ avcr7'U}ico" as m''Dii averrunceiit^' — '^The gods for- 
fendl" 

31. It was a common belief that witches could and did go 
sailing in sieves, and there is found a notice how one Dr. 
Fian, a notable sorcerer (finally burned at Edinburgh), in 
company with a number of witches, went to sea in a storm — • 
all in "elves." Witches were supposed, too, to be able to 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 83 

take the form of any animal — the tail, however, being 
ahvays wanting ; whicli reminds us of the old descriptions 
left of the werwolf 

32. Fantastical iwQwriS "imaginary" — "existing only in 
the imagination," " as a conception of the mind." It is an 
example of the Shakespearian use of certain words — as a 
rule, those recently introduced from foreign sources — in a 
literal and general sense, which we now use in a metaphori- 
cal and particular sense. There being already in the lan- 
guage a word which signified " imaginary," this new word 
became restricted. Compare " metaphysicar^ = (in Shake- 
speare) "supernatural." 

^^. A hai-binger was one who went before to provide a 
place of abode for the king and his suite. Comes from our 
word ^^ Jiarbour,^^ " harbourer," "harbinger." Perhaps ng 
crept in, as the n did in passenger, messenger (from passage, 
message), through carelessness of pronunciation. 

A pin-veyor was one sent before to provide food for the 
king. 

34. " God '//<'/ us" — i.e., reward tis, pay ics ; " '//^" is a 
corruption from yield, which is derived from A.-S. gyldan 
{pv giidan) , meaning "to pay," "to reward." 

The whole expression means : " In having shown you that 
the trouble I give is due to the love I have for you, I teach 
you how you must ask God to reward me for that love, even 
though it be the source of trouble to you." 

"■Bid'" (A.-S. biddan), used with its original meaning, 
'^ prayi" We have a reminiscence of this in our noun bead, 
which was first the prayer, then the string of beads on which 
the prayer was said, finally the beads (round things) them- 
selves. In " Saint Agnes Eve," we meet with the word — 
the old "' beadsman." 



84 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

35. " If tlie assassination could put an end to (or prevent) 
its natural consequences, and, by stopping these conse- 
quences, secure success," according to which interpretation 
the antecedent of his is consequence, — whence his is neuter 
genitive, where we should use its. [But A.-S. neuter pro- 
noun was hii (nominative), Jiis (genitive), and Shakespeare 
had not forgotten that entirely as we have. Its is said to 
have been formed on the analogy of the usual genitive case 
formation in s, when the h of the old nominative form having 
been lost and forgotten, it was felt that his was not the 
proper genitive for the neuter pronoun.] Several other 
interpretations of this passage have been suggested, but the 
one given above seems most satisfactory. 

"Trammel up " means "ensnare, as in a net," "entrap," 
and so put a stop to. ^^ Surcease^' is not connected with 
cease (Fr. cesser), as might seem probable, but comes from 
Fr. siirsis, and this from '^ surseoir'" — a legal term, mean- 
ing "to put a stop to a suit." ^^ Success''^ has also been 
interpreted, in its literal meaning, " succession," " issue." 
The modern meaning is a derived one. First, " succession," 
"issue " (Lat. succedere), now confined to "fortunate issue." 

36. The old anatomists divided the brain into three ven- 
tricles ; in the hindermost of which — the cerebellum, con- 
necting with the spinal column, and so with the nerves 
throughout the body — they supposed the memory to be 
stationed to watch over the reason (in the fore part of the 
brain) and guard it from attack. Now, when by drink the 
memory was converted into a mere vapor, it would fill the 
whole brain, which would thus become like the cap of a still, 
into which the vaporized liquor passes before it goes into the 
condenser. 

" Warder " is a word with which we do not often meet 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 85 

now-a-days — equivalent in meaning to our word guard, — 
being in fact the same word. It was brought by the Saxons 
to England, where it remained as "warder"; and was also 
taken to France, where it seems the natives were unable to 
pronounce the pure '' w " sound, and in the attempt let the 
'•^" slip in. This "^^" form was then brought to England 
by the Norman invaders in 1066, and finally superseded the 
equivalent English form in ^'' w^ A similar history is to be 
found in a good many other words ; cf. " warrant " and 
*' guarantee " ; " wise " and " guise " ; Eng. " war " and Fr. 
" guerre " ; Eng. "warren " and Fr. " garenne." 

'^Fniiie'' — originally smoke {l^:xX. fi/mus) — is probably 
used by Shakespeare in a metaphorical sense, as we speak 
of a man's reason being clouded. 

^^ Limbec''' — corruption of alembic (made of the Arabic 
article al and a Greek word) — a word borrowed from the 
Arabian alchemists, and meaning "the cap of a still, or 
retort." 

The change seems to liave been caused by mistaking tlie 
initial " <:z " for our indefinite article. Removing this, "■ Icm- 
bic,'' by popular corruption, becomes limbec. 

Other words taken from the Arabic are " almanac," 
" alchemy " itself, " algebra." 

For the trouble with regard to the article, we have a good 
many similar examples in our language. Having two forms 
— an used before vowels, a before consonants, consequently 
before words beginning with " n " — changes were produced. 
"An adder" used to be "a nadder " ; "'an apron," "a 
napron " ; "an orange," "'a norange " (Persian); while 
"a newt" was "an eft (ewt)." 

37. ^'Travelling lamp " — in the folio, " travailing lamp." 
Shakespeare rarely observed the modern distinction between 



86 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

these words, using them interchangeably, and generally in- 
volving a combination of both ideas. Here "travelling 
lamp " probably means '"' the sun painfully struggling on its 
way." Compare the use of "human" and "humane," 
accent nearly always on the first syllable. 

^S. " The deed by which man (they) holds life of nature 
gives no right to perpetual tenure." 

Nature is compared to a lord of the manor, under wliom 
men hold their livings by copy-hold tenure. This is a tenure 
for which the tenant has nothing to show but the copy of the 
rolls made out by the steward of his lord's court. It is a 
legal metaphor which is kept up lower down, " cancel and 
tear to pieces that great bond." Shakespeare frequently 
employed these law terms. 

39. The " state " was the elevated seat or throne with a 
canopy over it, placed for the hostess at the head of the 
table. It first meant the " canopy," then the whole arrange- 
ment. 

40. "Mu/zimy" was a favorite medicine for some time 
before and some time after Shakespeare's day. Francis I. 
is said to have kept it constantly about him as a panacea 
against all diseases. So great did the demand for this article 
become that it is said the Jews, who dealt in it largel3% 
found it both profitable and practicable to manufacture 
mummy out of dead bodies — sometimes "gibbet leavings " 
— and give them some old king's name. 

41. '^ Blood-boltered^' Banquo, — i.e., having his hair 
matted, — clotted with blood, as a natural consequence of 
the "twenty trenched gashes on his head." 

The term is said to be still retained colloquially in some 
districts, — applied, I believe, to horses when their manes 
become knotted and tangled. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 8/ 

42. These lines in regard to '^ the evil,'' which have no 
connection with the regular course of the drama, are sup- 
posed to have been introduced as a compliment to King 
James, who believed himself endowed with the miraculous 
powers of Edward the Confessor, — the power of the heal- 
ing touch, — an idea which seems to go along with that of 
the divine right of kings. 

''The evil," or "the king's evil," was a term applied to 
the '"scrofula," as being the special disease upon which the 
kings exercised this wonderful power. 

Edward's claims were believed in by his contemporaries, 
or very soon after iiis death, and were claimed for his suc- 
cessors early in the twelfth century. Queen Elizabeth, 
James I., Charles I., Charles II., all touched successfully, it 
is said. 

One of Dr. Johnson's earliest recollections was the being 
taken to be touched by Queen Anne, and the " touch-piece," 
hung by her about his neck is still preserved in the British 
Museum. 

43. ''Night-gown'' in Shakespeare's time was equivalent 
to our '•' dressing gown." The word is used again in this play 
(11. ii. 70). 

44. "Their dear causes," — the causes which touch each 
of them so closely. Dear indicated some close, intimate 
connection, — something of special interest. 

"The mortified man," is explained by some as the "low- 
spirited" man, — the man subdued by feeling of shame or 
mortification ; by others as " the religious," the recluse, the 
ascetic, who cares nothing for the world, and consequently 
coukl not be easily excited. But a stronger and better 
meaning still is given if we take " the mortified man " as the 
*' dead man/' — the literally mortified man. If this is the 



8S EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

true meaning, it may embody the old notion that a dead 
body, when in the presence of the murderer, would bleed. 

It has been suggested that " the mortified man " might 
mean "the Crucified" — "the Christ-man," which would 
give a very strong meaning. But this is hardly probable. 

45. ^^ Pestered'' (Latin "pes'"), literally "tied around the 
feet," — as "to hobble" a horse, — hampered in a physical 
sense, then metaphorically — ''troubled.'' 

46. Reference to the old custom of " bear-baiting," so 
much practised by our ancestors. The bear was tied to a 
stake, and then baited with dogs — a certain number at a 
time, and each set or turn was technically termed a course. 



^ESTHETIC. 

47. What do you understand the "Weird Sisters" in Macbeth to be? 

48/ Does Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth, say (II. ii. 16) : " Did not you 
speak?" And what do you think of Hunter's distribution of speeches 
adopted by Furness? — 

^^ Macbeth : I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? 
Lady Macbeth : I heard the owls scream and the crickets cry. 
MacbetJi ' Did not you speak? 
Lady Macbeth : When ? Now ? 
Macbeth : As I descended. 
Lady Macbeth: Ay." 

49. Give your impression of this whole Scene II., and of the effect of 
the knocking. 1. 57. 

50. What is Coleridge's opinion of the Porter-Scene (II. iii. 1-37) ; 
and your own opinion ? Can you recall anything similar elsewhere in 
Shakespeare ? 

51. How do you reconcile Macbeth's prompt murder of the grooms 
with his horror at the mere thought of killing Duncan, and his refusal 
to carry the bloody daggers back to the chamber ? 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 89 

52. Is Lady Macbeth's swoon, on hearing of the murder of the 
grooms, real or feigned — and the grounds of your opinion ? 

53. How do you explain the difference in Lady Macbeth's manner 
towards Macbeth after the Banquo ghost scene (III. iv.), as compared 
with her bearing after the murder of Duncan (II. ii.) ? 

54. Do you regard Lady Macbeth as a suicide ? And what do you 
consider the causes of her death ? 

55. What effect does her death have upon Macbeth, and upon our 
feeling towards him ? 

56. The character of Macbeth in brief ? 
.57. The lesson of the play ? 



47. The "Weird Sisters " in MacbetJi seem to us neither on 
the one hand mere mortal witches of popular superstition, 
nor yet, as Holinshed states, and as their name would imply, 
do we see in them "goddesses of destiny" — "fates" 
determining human actions and issues without regard to that 
fundamental essence of personality, will. They know the 
future and can foretell events ; yet they are not able of 
themselves to make those events come to pass. They also 
know the thoughts, tendencies, and purposes of human 
hearts, and herein lies the secret of their power over mortals. 
If there be not already the element of evil, the Weird Sisters 
never corrupt any man. It is that already in the heart which 
they draw out and develop. 

I have been specially impressed by Mr. Hudson's idea of 
the symbolical character attached to the Weird Sisters — 
that they are but the poetical embodiment of that mysterious 
principle of action and reaction which constantly goes on 
between the evil mind and external nature. 

As to special or real character of the Weird Sisters, 
Mr. Hudson finds nothing gross, sensual, or vulgar about 
them; deems them "the purity of sin incarnate — the vestal 



90 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

virgins, so to speak, of hell ; in whom everything is reversed ; 
whose ascent is downwards ; whose proper eucharist is a 
sacrament of evil; whose law is violation of all law." Now, 
I like this idea very much ; but, for some reason, find it 
impossible to divest myself of the feeling that there must be 
a certain and marked grossness about beings v»4"io could com- 
pile such surpassingly disgusting charm-potions as those upon 
which we find the Weird Sisters engaged in the latter part of 
the play. 

Their relation to the play as a whole is no less important 
than to Macbeth as an individual. These creatures, whose 
proper element is the tempest, whose chariot is the whirl- 
wind, whose religion is to do the evil, form a fit setting for a 
drama in which the very ground rocks beneath one's feet, in 
which the whole action is a stormy struggle between the 
powers gf good and the powers of evil. 

48. A question of this nature must, I suppose, be purely 
a matter of opinion. Still such questions will be raised and 
we are expected to posse ss an opinion. In this case Hunter's 
suggestion seems to me a good emendation. Macbeth had 
spoken, but it is probable that Lady Macbeth had recognized 
his voice and knew the fact perfectly. Moreover, in Macbeth's 
mouth these words acquire a deeper meaning, for they must 
be immediately prompted by and filled with the suggestion 
of that *' terrible voice " of wdiich Lady Macbeth knows 
nothing, and which had even forced from him the involuntary 
exclamation which she had heard. They are strikingly suited 
to Macbeth's character and state of mind, as exhibited in 
every word and in his whole manner throughout this scene. 
Flis bearing is that of eager, breathless listening, — waiting 
for that awful something which has not happened, but is 
going to happen, — for the repetition of those fearful ac- 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. gi 

cents, which have existed alone in his guilty imagination. 
The question is a despairing effort to find some natural and 
real explanation for the horrible creations of his excited im- 
agination. For Lady Macbeth there could be in them noth- 
ing of all this. It would be either a matter-of-fact attempt 
to dispel her husband's fears, or at most might imply some 
dread on her part lest the sound, which she knew she had 
heard, might have come from some one else than Macbeth, 
indicating that they had been watched. 

The further distribution is fitting too. Lady Macbeth, 
having just called his name, might naturally have concluded 
that he referred to that, and at once replied " Ay ! " But 
there must have been a degree of anxious doubt in the ques- 
tion which led her to inquire : '' When?" " Now? " His 
answer: "As I descended" — locates the time of the "ter- 
rible voice," and Lady Macbeth's final " Ay ! " is accordant 
with facts. 

49. This whole scene, in its relation to the rest of the play, 
is like a frightful nightmare in the midst of a troubled dream. 
The clear, sharp sound of the knocking, breaking through 
the weird silence — hitherto unbroken save by the irrepres- 
sible voice of the sinner's own conscience — is, for the in- 
stant, interpreted by the strained senses as the realization of 
that undefined " something" for which we, in sympathy with 
Macbeth, have been so breathlessly waiting. Such an acme 
of the terrible, in this way attained, cannot be endured ; in 
another moment the knocking is repeated — we remember 
ourselves, and, with a lingering shudder, turn to laugh at the 
drunken Porter ; while Macbeth washes the blood from his 
" hangman's hands," and goes forth in the strength of a 
desperate resolve to play an assumed part, foreign to his 
nature. 



92 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

This knocking, viewed in its effects, seems to ns com- 
pletely analogous (continuing the comparison established 
at the outset) to an effort employed to restore the victim of 
a dire nightmare. At the first instant, in the Jialf-unconscious 
state, blending with and intensifying the horrors, but proving 
in the end the effectual remedy and sure relief for the ter- 
rible malady. 

50. Coleridge thinks that this low, vulgar soliloquy of the 
Porter, and the few lines following, were not written by 
Shakespeare, but interpolated by some inferior hand to please 
the ears of " the groundlings." 

I cannot agree with Mr. Coleridge that an effect so es- 
sentially artistic as that produced by the introduction of this 
bit of comedy — coarse as it is — just at this point, would 
have been neglected by Shakespeare and finally supplied by 
a mere accident, as it were. Without the Porter-Scene, this 
portion of the drama — Scenes ii. and iii., with their in- 
tensely tragic nature, coming together as they do — would 
be utterly unendurable. But just at the moment when the 
feelings are wrought up to the highest pitch — a heinous 
murder having been committed almost before the eyes — 
here comes in this scene to afford the needful relaxation. 

The eminent fitness between the drunken Porter's concep- 
tion and the hellish deed, but then perpetrated within, has 
been urged, and I think justly, as an additional argument for 
its authenticity. 

As far as the style is concerned, its broadness is conceded 
by the very best critics to be by no means un-Shakespearian ; 
while '• the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire " is far 
from being the only thing bearing the unmistakable impress 
of the mighty master. 

Instances of the same sort of thing are multiplied in the 
writings of Shakespeare. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. g\ 

It seems to me that the witch scene (III. v.), coming as 
it docs just after the terrible banquet scene, and the con- 
versation between Lady Macduff and her httle son (IV. ii.) 
just before their murder, have something of the same effect. 
Compare also, in Hamlet, the scene in the church-yard with 
the clowns (V. i.), followed by the frightful tragedy enacted 
at the open grave of Ophelia. 

Also in King Lear compare the Poor Tom (Edgar) scene, 
which comes just before the putting out of Gloucester's eyes. 
And also perhaps the short clown scene in Otliello, coming 
in as a sort of relief before the final catastrophe. 

51. Macbeth is restrained from the murder of Duncan by 
the power of a sensitive conscience, working through im- 
aginary terrors. Notwithstanding the assuring prophecy of 
the Weird Sisters, he is still haunted by the dreadful fear of 
the unknown, possible consequence. Immediately after the 
murder, conscience is still more active, and he cannot bring 
himself to face the horrors which imagination conjures up, 
— he cannot brave that 'S^oice " again, — he dare not look 
on the murdered Duncan ! It is the natural terror of a man 
" but young in deed," — '^ the initiate fear that wants hard 
use." His prompt murder of the grooms in the very next 
scene, though seemingly, is not really at variance with this 
shrinking which we have just noted. By utmost effort his 
wife has, in the interval, succeeded in rousing him to a re- 
alization of the immediate danger of detection in which they 
stand. Impressed with this idea, he comes forth to meet the 
nobles, and to play such a part upon the discovery of the 
murdered King, as shall entirely disarm suspicion. His 
whole conduct is governed by this desire, and is just what 
we should expect from a man whose face is " as a book 
where men may read things strange." His very language is 



94 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

Strained and unnatural, appropriate only in the month of a 
conscious murderer dissembling guilt. He talks to avoid liis 
own thoughts, and to mislead others. 

Exhibition of great grief for the death of the king and 
hatred for the perpetrators of the horrible deed seems to him 
the proper course, and in no way can this pious indignation 
be so effectually shown as in slaying the supposed culprits. 
It is possible, too, that he feared the grooms, who had been 
in tlie chamber, certainly roused, and may have seen more 
than he supposed. 

52. We can readily understand how, upon a first reading 
of the play, having nothing upon which to base an opin- 
ion save Lady Macbeth's preceding words and conduct, 
one might think this swoon feigned, and but another exhibi- 
tion of that presence of mind and determination of will by 
means of which she had succeeded in screwing her own and 
her husband's courage to the '' sticking-place," — which had 
not abandoned her during the murder scene (at first reading 
one might easily overlook the single unmistakable touch of 
womanly weakness shown in the words, " Had he not resem- 
bled my father as he slept, I had done it,"), — which had 
enabled her to take back the daggers and gild the faces of 
the grooms with blood, when the " infirm of purpose " re- 
fused to do it, — which even that terrible task could not 
destroy, since, upon her return, hearing the knocking, she 
remembered at once that to be found fully dressed would 
show them to be watchers. But, having gone through the 
play and heard Lady Macbeth's troubled sigh — 
"Naught's had, all's spent; 
Where our desire is got without content " — 

(III. ii. 4-7) ; having observed her in the short scene with 
Macbeth after the banquet, and especially in the sleep-walk- 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 95 

ing scene, we arc satisfied that the swoon on this occasion 
is real. Some one very appositely suggests that, had Lady 
jNIacbeth adopted this artifice as a means of further averting 
suspicion, she would, without doubt, have fallen when Dun- 
can's murder was announced to her. The effect would have 
been greater, and, moreover, knowing nothing of the murder 
of the grooms, she could not have anticipated this further 
opportunity. And just here, it seems to us, lies the explana- 
tion of this unexpected exhibition of weakness. She knew 
all about Duncan's murder and was on her guard, but this 
other Avas a thing thoroughly unexpected, for which, conse- 
quently, she was not prepared, and her nature gave way 
under the shock. ]\Iay it not be, too, that her woman's 
heart felt even then that the husband, who so lately had 
leaned upon her entirely, in doing this deed without consult- 
ing her, was drifting away from her? 

53. May not an explanation of the difference of her man- 
ner on the two occasions be found in the following consider- 
ations? Just, after the murder of Duncan there was no time 
for the employment of gentler means — no time to seek the 
sleep which she entreats in the second instance. The nobles 
were even then at the gate ; her husband must be recovered, 
and that both effectually and without delay, lest, in his 
phrensy, he divulge the whole terrible secret, and thus bring 
ruin upon them both (as was threatened again (hi7'ing the 
banquet scene — which may account for the contrast between 
her manner during that scene and after the scene is over). 
Lady Macbeth realizes this, and has both the clear-sighted- 
ness to know what to do, and, in her excitement, the strength 
to do it. Let us note too that she is under the influence of 
artificial stimulants. 

In the second case, the guests are gone, all the harm done 



96 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

that can be done, hence no such need for peremptory 
measures as on the previous occasion. It is permitted that 
her conduct be in accordance with her womanly feehngs, 
and so we find it. Besides tenderest sympathy for him, there 
is a depth of pathos in her very words — a weariness in her 
voice and manner, which point possibly to another explana- 
tion to be found in the sad change — the gradually deepening 
melancholy fallen upon her own spirit since that former occa- 
sion. 

54. On this subject commentators differ. Coleridge 
asserts, " she dies in suicidal agony." Gervinus thinks " she 
ends her life with suicide." Dowden's opinion is, "her 
thread of life snaps suddenly." Mrs. Jameson believes that, 
" In a mind constituted like that of Lady Macbeth, con- 
science must awake at some time or other, and bring with it 
remorse closed by despair and despair by death." Mrs. 
Siddons, agreeing in general with Mrs. Jameson, thinks that 
the woman's fragile constitution finally broke down under the 
weight of remorseful agony which she so resolutely shut up 
in her own bosom. Hudson says: "A mystery hangs over 
her fate. We do not know — the poet himself seems not to 
have known, whether the gnawings of the undying worm 
drove her to suicidal violence or themselves cut asunder the 
thread of her life." And it would seem not improbable that 
Mr. Hudson's candid acknowledgment of ignorance is, after 
all, the most just conclusion. But somehow — call it senti- 
mentalism if you will — we cannot bring ourselves to believe 
that Lady Macbeth took her own life. It is true that Mal- 
colm makes such an announcement ; but he only states it as 
"'tis thought." It is true also that the Doctor orders that 
" the means of all annoyance " be removed from her, show- 
ing that he feared something of the sort ; still, knowing Lady 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 97 

Macbetli as the Doctor could not, we think the idea of suicide 
incompatible with her character as developed in the play. 

The woman who, when the moment came, could not mur- 
der the sleeping king, — who fainted upon the announce- 
ment of the slaughter of the grooms, would have paused upon 
the threshold of eternity, daunted by the dreadful reality of 
the unknown which confronted her. I do not agree with 
I\Irs. Jameson that Lady Macbeth's anguish is merely remorse 
— horror of the past, unmingled with terror of the future. 
That fearful sleep-walking revelation (" What's done cannot 
be undone," like everything else she says, is but an echo of 
the same words used on a former occasion, when, feeling 
herself beginning to sink, she strove by the expression of 
such fatalistic doctrines, not only to cheer her despondent 
husband, but to regain her own lost peace of mind by con- 
vincing herself of their truth) seems rather the prelude to a 
slirieking death-bed scene, where occurs a prolonged and 
desperate struggle between death and its guilty victim, — a 
frantic clinging to life with its horrible dreams, rather than 
face the still more horrible certainty which she knows awaits 
her. 

Now, as to the causes of her death. It seems to us the 
combined effect of two fatal wounds upon a naturally deli- 
cate physical constitution. What has been said above is 
sufficient to show where we locate one of these, — violated 
conscience avenges itself. But we believe another, and pos- 
sibly that which in the outset afforded a basis for the former, 
is to be found in the hidden wound rankling in her heart. 
Although we do not agree with Gervinus in thinking her 
whole ambition was "for and through her husband," we do 
believe that her courage was, in a great measure, based upon 
the strength of her own love for him, and her confidence in 



98 EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

his love for and need of her. As long as this confidence 
remains, she is firm to endure anything, — at the first moment 
that it is shaken her apparently superhuman strength begins 
to yield (upon the announcement of the murder of the 
grooms, mentioned above). Conscience, up to this time 
stifled in the constant excitement attendant upon her efforts 
to spur her husband on, finds now an opportunity to assert 
itself, and death is but the legitimate result of these two 
causes. 

55. One commentator sees in Macbeth's language at the 
announcement, 

"The queen, my lord, is dead," 

the perfect indifference of a heartless criminal to the fate of 
the wife who had been so faithful to him. 

Another thinks Lady Macbeth's death touches him in the 
only remaining vulnerable point, and calls forth some *' deeply 
serious, solemn, elegiac strains." To us there is spoken a 
different story still. In these words is embodied a degree of 
combined bitterness and contempt which could only be 
wrung from a strong heart driven to the last extreme of des- 
peration. The bitterness is that of a hopeless anguish which 
the victim feels has been drawn down by his own hand. To 
the natural grief for the loss of the wife whom he really loved, 
there is added, most probably, the stinging consciousness of 
his own selfish forgetfulness of her in the season when she 
needed him most sorely. The contempt is that of a man 
who has " supped full with horrors," and whom " the faint 
odour of blood has disgusted with all else." We behold in 
silence the unmistakable evidence of the inevitable but hidden 
workings by which justice -will be satisfied. Our indignation 
is appeased. We now feel sincerest pity for the deep misery 
which we know rends the heart of a fellow being. 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 99 

56. The development of the character of Macbeth in this 
play is the history of a struggle, fierce and prolonged, between 
the power of good and the power of evil found in each 
human heart. And a sharp fight it is, too, in this case, 
before the evil finally prevails. Schlegel's idea that Macbeth, 
with his noble nature, is irresistibly forced to crime by a 
supernatural power, wholly external to him, cannot, we think, 
be supported from the text. Upon his very first appearance, 
in the interview with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth displays a 
signal weakness — a susceptibility to impressions of the imag- 
ination, which by contrast with the matter-of-fact Banquo, 
is the more marked. 

While Banquo, in amazement, questions the report of his 
own eyes, Macbeth drinks in their words, and when, almost 
immediately, one prediction is fulfilled, looks forward to the 
time when " the golden round and top of sovereignty " shall 
encircle his noble brow. Now begins the conflict — '' This 
supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good." 
Already is he so shaken by that " thought whose murder yet 
is but fantastical, that function is smothered in surmise, and 
nothing is but what is not." And when recalled to con- 
sciousness- by a reproof from the observant Banquo, he 
shows still further weakness — in the desire to conceal his 
guilty thoughts, he sinks still lower and stoops to falsehood. 
All which things seem to us inconsistent with Schlegel's 
view. 

We think with those commentators who believe Macbeth's 
sin the offspring of his own heart. Mr. Hudson's present- 
ment of the progress of this leaven of evil seems to us excel- 
lent. He thinks that from the moment of meeting with the 
Weird Sisters, the idea of hastening the fulfilment of the 
third prophecy by the murder of Duncan was constantly 



lOO EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. 

before his mind ; that the subsequent hesitation was due to 
the curious conscience of the man, powerfully active, though 
hiding itself under the mental disturbance which it occa- 
sioned ; that there was needful yet another force before con- 
science could be made to yield — his domestic affections 
were enlisted, his manhood and valor impeached by the 
woman he loved — than which nothing is harder for a sol- 
dier to bear. When Lady Macbeth has thus made it a 
theme of domestic war and reduced the matter to this alter- 
native — he must either do the deed or cease to live with 
her as wife, then and then only does he fully resolve to 
murder Duncan, He goes through this first crime with an 
assumed ferocity borrowed from his wife ; but, as soon as this 
is done, he oversteps her designs and stains his hands still 
deeper in the blood of the helpless grooms. From this time 
forth, conscience, in imaginary terrors, becomes the instiga- 
tor to new murders. Having given others cause to suspect 
him, he, in turn, suspects them, and seeks safety and peace 
in using the sword — every thrust of which adds a new 
wound to the agony he already suffers. Such is the horrible 
madness to which crime has driven him. Slaughter is 
heaped upon slaughter, — the most innocent are the chief 
victims. Trusting implicitly in the equivocal prophecy of 
the Weird Sisters, yet never losing sight of his own freedom, 
he rushes on with the blindness of desperation — forgetful 
alike of friends, of wife, of God — to the dreadful punish- 
ment which awaits him. And when it finally comes, we feel 
a stern satisfaction in the knowledge that justice, which we 
saw almost appeased in the restless agony at the death of his 
wife, is now fully satisfied. 

In the powerful conscience and vivid imagination of 
Macbeth, we recognize a tinge of Hamletism, and therefore 



EXAMINATION IN MACBETH. lOI 

the comparison and contrast drawn between the two charac- 
ters by Gervinus, is specially interesting to us. Herein is 
brought out strikingly one decided characteristic of Macbeth, 
upon which Hudson does not dwell. Macbeth is placed 
over against Hamlet as the man of action, opposed to the 
man of thought. Conscience is found equally strong in 
both, — but with this difference, that in Macbeth it has not 
only to reflect and doubt, but to do, to struggle — active to 
the last. Imagination too — a common heritage — while 
holding Hamlet back, urges Macbeth on, since to him " pres- 
ent fears are ever less than horrible imaginings." The essen- 
tial difference between the man of thought and the man of 
action is seen in the results. In Hamlet's case, everything 
urges to the murder of Claudius — still, he hesitates ; while 
IMacbeth slays the innocent Duncan in the face of con- 
sience and every external consideration. 

57. Perhaps, as some suggest, this play may have served 
as a warning against the popular superstitions so rife in 
Shakespeare's time — beliefs in witchcraft and in supernatural 
agencies in general. It assuredly speaks, too, of the evils 
consequent upon inordinate ambition in particular. But do 
we not find therein a lesson more general, and at the same 
time more individual, saying to each of us in unmistakable 
accents, " ' Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are 
the issues of life ' ; and pray without ceasing, ' Lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil ' ! " 



I have received no assistance in this examination. 

N. B. Bowman. 



GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 



GERTRUDE, OUEEN OF DENMARK. 



By Miss N. B. Bowman. June, 1882. 

FINDING the voice of criticism concerning the Queen 
in Hamlet by no means uniform, we are impelled to 
abandon commentaries, and, from a careful study of the play 
alone, to endeavor to form an opinion for ourselves. And at 
the close of our investigation this variance amongst the scholars 
seems to us but another tribute to Shakespeare's inimitable 
art and boundless knowledge of men. The veil of uncer- 
tainty cast about her, lends to Gertrude that peculiar fasci- 
nation which always attends the mysterious. It is thus that 
the artist secures for her the attention and sympathetic in- 
terest which a direct revelation of her true character would 
never have called forth. Nor does the poet ever wholly tear 
away this veil, exclaiming "Behold, this is Gertrude!" 
Nevertheless, if earnestly intent, we are enabled now and 
then, as it is lifted by the strong breath of genius, to catch a 
glimpse of the real woman beneath. The greatest source of 
this confusion would seem, then, to lie in the minds of the 
critics themselves. Guided by over-weening confidence in 
their own intellectual powers, deeming their penetration irre- 
sistible, their judgment inflillible, believing that they have 
thoroughly plucked out the heart of the Queen's mystery, 
and therefore never stopping to decipher what the artist has, 
as it were, delicately but clearly traced between the lines, 
many pronounce at once and finally the terrible verdict — 



I06 GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 

Guilty ! But whatever the ultimate decision, the poet has 
still, in every case, attained his object — interest is never 
abated ! 

And now let us see what we have been enabled to find out, 
directly or indirectly, concerning this woman. With yjer- 
sonal charms she seems to have been peculiarly endowed. 
Beautiful, with that fragile, clinging loveliness which appeals 
to all hearts, her natural grace of manner was heightened by 
refinement and culture, while in her eyes shone the light of 
an intelligence which, though not profound, was yet quick 
and appreciative — all qualities of which the combination 
yields just that rare type of womanhood, whose society one 
feels sure of finding ever restful, ever refreshing — a woman 
ready to entertain or be entertained, as suits the mood of 
her favored companion ; one who would know how to flatter 
by an intelligent interest, even in metaphysical subjects, 
should it please his lordship to discourse upon such themes, 
without possessing either the ability or inclination to bore 
him in turn with tedious and hair-splitting theories of her own. 
The innate courtesy which we should expect is seen in the 
Queen's reception of her husband's guests, and we acknowl- 
edge the delicacy which prompted the inverted repetition of 
the King's words, " Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guild- 
enstern," as she says, " Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle 
Rosencrantz." Perhaps herein lies the explanation of her 
irrational conduct in uniting herself so soon after her hus- 
band's death to a man to whom her former lord was as 
" Hyperion to a Satyr." It is undoubtedly the desire to 
please which prompts the latter as well as the former act, 
rendering her unable to deny the earnest entreaties of her 
"sometime-brother." But beneath this, as the ultimate 
motive, disguised though it be almost past recognition, we 



GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. lO/ 

perceive a, so to speak, negatively-active spirit of selfishness 
— the fundamental principle of Gertrude's character. Her 
womanly vanity demands admiration ; her womanly weakness 
demands protection ; her Avoman's heart demands love. To 
gain these three requisites a woman must please ; does not 
this explain the desire on her part ? Instinctively does she 
know the art, which consists, to a very great extent, in judi- 
ciously flattering the self-love of othersr; her womanly tact 
enables her to accomplish just this, her natural charms do 
the rest. But by no means do we believe that Gertrude is 
in the least conscious of the selfish motive actuating her 
conduct. She is sweet, gentle, and lovable, because such is 
her nature, and to be disagreeable would be fatiguing in the 
extreme. Were we required to designate in a word the 
most striking feature of the woman's character, we should 
unhesitatingly respond, weakness ! lack of moral strength ! 
She wanted force, that which is absolutely essential to any 
positive character, without which it is impossible to be either 
very good or very bad. And just here naturally arises the 
interesting and much-disputed question, whether Gertrude 
was or was not stained with that deadliest of crimes — a 
husband's murder ? After the preceding exposition of char- 
acter, it would seem scarcely needful to assert that we have 
been unable to find any satisfactory evidence against her, 
while many things bear witness to her innocence. 

In the first place, the devotion of the former king to his 
wife seems strong presumptive evidence for her. The ten- 
derness and constancy exhibited in the words of the Ghost 
to Hamlet, concerning his mother, are beautiful. We ob- 
serve how he shields her, putting the whole blame on the 
wicked brother, who, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitor- 
ous gifts, won to his shameful lust the will of his most 



I08 GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 

seeming-virtuous queen. Then, seeing that Hamlet might 
deem his mother invoh'ed in the fearful crime, and so 
equally deserving his vengeance, the Ghost forewarned him : 

" But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, 
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught : leave her to heaven 
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, 
To prick and sling her." 

And the crime for which her conscience was "to prick 
and sting her " was, we believe, her indecent and unwomanly 
inconstancy — nothing more. 

Again, the Queen's manner at the "play within the play" 
is characterized throughout by a calmness entirely irrecon- 
cilable with a guilty conscience. Only mark the contrast 
in the effects of this test upon the two for whom it was 
prepared. 

Gertrude looks on with her usual quietly- curious interest, 
and when, at the exit of the player queen, Hamlet turns, 
expecting to read a confession of guilt in the confusion 
depicted on her countenance, and abruptly demands, 
" Madam, how like you this play?" he receives the coolly 
critical reply, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." 
Moreover, when Claudius, growing more and more restless, 
thrown completely off his guard, finally loses all control 
over himself and springs to his feet, the solicitous surprise 
shown in her question, "How fares my lord?" not only 
completes the proof of her own innocence, but is evidence 
of her utter ignorance with regard to the King's guilt. The 
prodigious nerve needful for acting such a part as this is 
not, as we have said, to be found in Gertrude's moral con- 
stitution. 



GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. IO9 

But it is in the closet-scene, in the interview between 
Hamlet and his mother, that we find the clearest exposition 
of her character and most positive proof of her innocence. 
Here we see a woman overrating her strength — undertak- 
ing a task far too heavy for her. How quickly the threats 
are abandoned, the purposed " taxing " forgotten ; and the 
would-be plaintiff, overwhelmed by the sweeping hurricane 
of accusations hurled upon her, subsides into the timid, 
trembling woman that she is by nature ! Surprised, hurt, 
aghast, she is utterly unable to defend herself. But her 
very discomfort works to her advantage ; for what denial 
that she could make were half so convincing as the involun- 
tary questioning in her exclamation, " As kill a king ! " in re- 
sponse to Hamlet's bitter sarcasm. We cannot concur v/ith 
those who consider this the startled outcry of conscious 
guilt. And again, that the Queen was no hardened sinner, 
is evident from the readiness with which she acknowledges 
her real fault, and the horror with which she shrinks from 
the wretched creature drawn by Hamlet's excited imagina- 
tion, and held up as a fac-simile of herself, who was "her 
husband's brother's wife." 

The weakness of this woman is further shown in her un- 
willingness to meet poor, wronged Ophelia, who comes with 
her verses and sweet flowers to "the beauteous majesty of 
Denmark." In her words, just at "Ophelia's entrance, — 

" To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, 
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss " — 

we see, not a confession of implication in the murder, but 
the natural nervous depression produced upon a nature so 
susceptible as hers by the prickings of conscience — perhaps 
now first awakened to a realization of her error by Hamlet's 



no GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 

accusations. Ophelia's sad death brings before us many of 
those lovely traits which we found in this character — affec- 
tion for Ophelia, sympathy for Laertes, gentleness, and a 
genuine touch of womanliness. Scattering flowers bedewed 
with tears, she sadly exclaims : 

" Sweets to the sweet : farewell ! 
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; 
I thought thy bride-bed to have to deck'd, sweet maid, 
And not have strew'd thy grave ! " 

The one strong feature in her whole life was her intense 
and constant devotion to Hamlet. "If words were made 
of breath, and breath of life, she had no life to breathe " a 
word, if that might injure him. All her free actions tend to 
his interest and safety. And finally, to his honor, she 
quaffed the poisoned cup and met death through love to 
him ! 

But no merely subjectiv^e view of isolated individual char- 
acter can suffice in the consideration of any of these second- 
ary creations of Shakespeare ; though, in each case, the 
portrayal of individual, as well as general, humanity is al- 
ways complete • still, as with real persons, it frequently hap- 
pens that the chief interest is that attached to them as parts 
bearing important relations to a whole. 

There a Margaret of Anjou moves like a fury through the 
scenes ; here a calm, practical Horatio, or an unscrupu- 
lously active Claudius, in this sense secondary, by striking 
contrast, affords an admirable background upon which is 
thrown into bolder relief the imaginative and over sensitive 
nature of the inactive hero, Hamlet. 

In King Lear the poet lias given us a rare example of 
his exquisite skill in the management of this essential yet 



GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. I I 1 

subordinate part of liis work. A few delicately bold strokes, 
a bare outline — if indeed so meagre a sketch can be said 
to be an outline — and there results a character, which, in 
its perfect and noble purity, casts but a darker hue upon the 
hehiousness of the wicked sisters. Though her active part 
in the play occupies so small a space, still there goes forth 
from Cordelia a silent, unobtrusive, but all-pervading and 
irresistible influence — as little a matter of consciousness to 
herself as to others. 

Thus it is that we would now look at Gertrude, regarded 
as the type of this whole class, observing the influence 
exerted by her upon the principal characters, and so upon 
the entire action of the play. And if it be maintained that, 
in emphasizing the passivity of the Queen's character, we 
have detracted from the importance of her part in the play, 
we answer — by no means ! Passivity is not nonentity ; and 
in the Queen we recognize a powerful, although negative, 
force — the occasion, although not the cause, of the whole 
drama. 

We have only to add to an already overweening ambition 
the strength of an intensely passionate love for his fair 
Queen-sister, and we see just the impulse which, acting 
upon a nature almost devoid of conscience, could lead 
Claudius unhesitatingly to play the traitor — by one bold 
stroke to sweep aside the single obstacle — though that ob- 
stacle was a brother and a King — which stood between 
him and the woman who would satisfy at once that love and 
that ambition. And this we conceive to have been Ger- 
trude's whole share in that awful tragedy which affords the 
basis for Shakespeare's play of Havilet ; a share held by 
reason of the very peculiarities which would render her 
utterly incapable of direct crime. 



112 GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 

Subsequently we find that the very love which here acted 
as a stimulus, inciting the brother-subject to fratricide and 
regicide — became a clog holding back the husband-king 
when, by repentance and prayer, he might have obtained 
pardon for his terrible offences ; for " O, limed soul, that 
struggling to be free was more engaged 1" even when on his 
knees, weak words alone ascended, his thoughts remained 
below with those " effects " for whicli he did the murder : his 
" crown, his own ambition, and his Queen ! " And here 
we have Gertrude j^resented in the significant relation of a 
powerful conservative force in the drama ; for what is clearer 
than that the introduction of such a radical change as must 
necessarily result from repentance and consequent repara- 
tion on the part of Claudius, would produce, if any play at 
all, one essentially different from Hamlet. 

We must beg, however, not to be understood as pretend- 
ing to establish that in Gertrude is found such a motive as 
would justify the assertion that, without her, Claudius would, 
on the one hand, not have killed the King or usurped the 
throne ; or that he would, on the other, have repented and 
restored the crown to its rightful heir, Hamlet. 

Yet, of one thing we feel assured, the employment of 
strategy on the part of the King in dealing with Hamlet 
himself is not due solely to fear of public sentiment, but is 
traceable, -primarily, to a tender consideration for "the 
Queen, his mother, who lives almost by Hamlet's looks," 
whom Claudius finds 

" So conjunctive to his life and soul, 
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, 
H6 cannot but by her." 

And thus, by continued analysis, may the silent, yet 
strangely powerful, influence of Gertrude be traced even to 



GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. II3 

that dread and final catastrophe, which is but the legitimate 
issue of these treacherous '*' indirections " adopted for her 
sake. 

But it is not by reason of her influence over the King 
alone that Gertrude can be truly considered the occasion of 
this play. No whit less marked, and of even greater inter- 
est to us as students of the play, is the effect of her influ- 
ence as seen in the life of Hamlet himself. The awakened 
conscience of the woman has unerringly revealed to her the 
secret of her son's " wildness," when, with troubled voice, 
she says to her husband : 

" I doubt it is no other but the main : 
His father's death and our o'er hasty marriage." 

Nor is more needed. Hamlet's natural distress for the 
loss of a noble father, " whose like," he feels, " he will not 
see again," was enhanced by most harrowing misgivings 
aroused by the mystery attending the death of the late king. 
Now add to this the blow dealt his pride, his affection, his 
high sense of honor, in that disgracefully hasty marriage of 
the mother whom, from earliest childhood, we may suppose 
he had enshrined in his loyal heart — second only to his 
kingly father — as the most perfect type of beautiful and 
pure womanhood, and we have a train of circumstances 
powerful enough to drive any soul, and especially a sensi- 
tive one, back into itself, producing just the moodiness and 
melancholy which are seen in Hamlet. 

On the other hand, had Hamlet, on his return to Elsinore, 
found, as he expected, a heart-broken mother clinging to 
him for support, in protecting and comforting her, would he 
not have been drawn out of himself — away from his own 
brooding sorrow? Furthermore, the responsibilities of the 



114 GERTRUDE, QUEEN OF DENMARK. 

kingdom would then have devolved upon him, irresistibly 
inciting to a noble promptitude of action ; for his nature, 
not otherwise attainable. And would not the effect of all 
this have been manifest in an immediate discharge of the 
sacred obligation resting upon him, openly and unhesitat- 
ingly to avenge his father's murder? And upon this founda- 
tion, long, brilliant, and rich in usefulness is the career 
which imagination pictures for him, while over all is shed 
the radiance of its crowning glory, found in the happy love 
of the fair Ophelia. But why pursue a vain shadow, charm- 
ing though it be ! Enough has been shown, we think, to 
justify the conclusion that, without the Queen — without 
just this Gertrude of Denmark, woman as well as Queen — 
the play of Hamlet would have been merely an im- 
possibility. 



INTERMEDIATE EXAMINATION. 



Senior Literature Class. January, i88i. 



HAMLET. 

I. ^^'here did Shakespeare get the story of Hamlet, and 
^vhen did he write the play? What is Goethe's opinion of its 
aim ? 

II. Explain the following passages and words : — 

Act I. Sc. i. 127. I'll cross it, though it blast me. — Sc. ii. 10, 
Avith a defeated ]OY. — Sc. ii. 42-50. Use of thott and yon; 
ib. 70, thy vailed lids; ib. 92, to do obsequious sorrow; ib. 
127, the King's rouse. — Sc. iv. I, the air bites shrewdly; 
ib. 9, the King doth i.oake (what is modern make ?') ; ib. 65, 
at a pin's y^<?. — Sc. v. 77. Unhouserd, disappointed, tinaneled. 

Act XL Sc. i. 103. \^\vo%q\\q\&x\S. property fordoes itself. — Sc. ii. 
6. Sith, use of, and since; ib. 158, the centre — Shak.'s 
astronomy; ib. 337, whose lungs are ticJde 0'' the sere ; ib. 
397-8, I am but . . . handsaiu ; ib. 443-5, your ladyship — 
chopine. (Meaning, and to whom applied.) 

Act in. Sc. ii. 12, the groundlings : ib. 15, oiit-herods Herod; 
ib. 131, your only/zV-uiaker. (y/> was what?); ib. 142, the 
hobby-horse, was what? — Sc. iv. 2>^, proof ?in<l btilxvark 
against sense (derivation of buhuark) ; ib. 98, a vice of 
kings. 

Act IV. Sc. iii. 2>Zy go a progress. 

Act V. Sc. i. 299. IVoo't drink tip eisel. — Sc. ii. 6, the mtitines 
in the bilboes; ib. lo-ii, Thero's 2i divinity — how we will. 
(Explain this metaphor; its source.) 



Il6 INTERMEDIATE EXAMINATION. 

III. What three cardinal points must we observe in regard 
to the inflections of EHzabethan EngHsh ? Give the gram- 
matical explanation of the following expressions, according 
to Shakespeare's use? 

Act I. Sc. iii. 126, how J'rodi^a/ the soul. — Sc. v. 94, grow not 

instant old. 
Act II. Sc. ii. 510, sets him new a-work. 
Act I. vSc. i. 57, the sensible and true avouch; ib. 164, so gracious 

is the time. — Sc. iv. 20, The form oi plansive manners. 
Act III. Sc. i. 180, variable objects. 
Act I. Sc. ii. 207, In dreadful secxecy. — Sc. i. 114, the mightiest 

Julius. — Sc. iii. 46, But, good niy brother. — Sc. i. 8, For this 

relief much thanks. — Sc. v. 180, mercy at your most need. — 

Sc. iii. 133, slander moment leisure. 
Act II. Sc. ii. 508, As hush as death. 
Act III. Sc. i. 164, the honey of his music vows. 
Act I. Sc. V. 19, to stand an end. 
Act II. Sc. i. 58, There was a-gaming. — Sc. ii. 510, sets him 

new a-z(Jork ; ib. 615, fall a-cursing. 
Act III. Sc. i. 173, sits on brood. 
Act I. Sc. iii. 135, come your zvays. 
Act III. Sc. i. 145, thou wilt needs marry. 
Act I. Sc. ii. 218, even then the m.orning cock crew. 
Act IV. Sc. iii. 22, are e'en at him; ib. your only emperor for 

diet. 
Act II. Sc. ii. 42, Thou hast still been the father of good news. 
Act I. Sc. iv. 67, Why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? 

— Sc. ii. II, An auspicious and a dropping eye. 
Act II. Sc. ii. 92, impart a thing to you. 
Act V, Sc. ii. 276, These foils have all a length. 
Act I. Sc. iii. 95, And that in way of caution. — Sc. v. 65, enmity 

loith blood of men. 
Act III. Sc. ii. 394, Almost in shape of a camel. 
Act I. Sc. iv. 21, though performed at height. 
Act V. Sc. i. 100, Did these bones cost no man the breeding? 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 



NO formal discussion will be entered upon here as to 
whether and why the English Language and Literature 
should be regarded as incomparably the most important .ele- 
ment in the education of American girls. Such it undoubt- 
edly is ; and further, it is probably the most valuable thing 
in their school instruction. Instruction, let it always be 
remembered, though bringing it about, is not education. 
Happily the time is come when English is recognized gener- 
ally as a thing to be taught and studied, though the recogni- 
tion is far from perfect. Shakespeare, the crowning glory of 
the English language, has long been studied and read as 
literature, and now his works are found in the hands of 
thousands of pupils as text-books. The especial value of his 
works as text-books for girls will be spoken of incidentally in 
the following pages. 

The manner of using Shakespeare, as the aim of teaching 
him in the class-room, may vary greatly and through all the 
intermediary stages, from furnishing pieces to "get by heart " 
to furnishing illustrations for lectures on versification. 

The aim of this paper is to suggest such a method of study 
as will enable the average girl in our higher schools for girls 
to get a good idea of Shakespeare's plays. The scope of the 
paper is therefore practical, and is not intended to be any- 
thing else. Its purpose is didactic, but not to develop a 
theory of didactics. Yet, as certain things too commonly 



I20 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

done are plainly wrong for a teacher to do, the writer has 
thought it best, without assuming to be dogmatic, to warn 
against those things whosoever will read. 

To understand Shakespeare, we must understand his 
medium of thought, his language, as thoroughly as possible. 
For this, study is necessary ; and one notable advantage of 
the thorough study of this medium is t\h.t the student be- 
comes unconsciously more or less imbued with Shakespeare's 
turn of thought while observing his turn of phrase. Now, so 
far as Shakespeare goes, as compared with Scott or Milton 
or Tennyson, any method of instruction bringing him before 
the pupil's mind is valuable. But, in so far as the pupil is 
concerned, the manner and facility of contact with Shake- 
speare is of great consequence. For, in proportion as he is 
the deepest, most eloquent, most healthful, most natural of 
our poets, is misapprehension of his teachings pernicious. 
And of all our poets, perhaps he is the one to misapprehen- 
sions concerning whom people cling most stoutly. Why? 
Because the mannerisms and comparative singleness of 
thought and speech of other poets make mistakes more easily 
avoidable ; whereas Shakespeare's complexity of thought and 
purpose readily suggest errors in judgment ; and adequate 
comprehension of his language can alone prevent such errors. 
If this be so, there is much reason for choosing for the young 
the way of contact least liable to wrong going. It is much 
easier to correct a false estimate of Shakespeare, by showing 
that it rests on a false basis of word- underpinning, than by 
dint of any argument how persuasive soever. 

For the class-room, then, a non-sesthetic, preliminary 
study is best. And this may be accomplished in the follow- 
ing way : By studying carefully the Text, — the words them- 
selves and their forms ; their philological content, so far as 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 121 

such content is essential to the thought; and tlie grammati- 
cal differences of usage, then and now ; by observing accu- 
rately the point of view of life {IVc/fauschai/ini;^) historically 
and otherwise, as shown in the text ; by taking what may be 
called the actor's view of the personages of the play ; and, 
finally, by a sober and discriminating aesthetic discussion of 
the characters, of the principles represented by those charac- 
ters, and of tiie play in its parts and as a whole. 

I. With regard to the woj-ds themselves and their /6';7;/j' / 
There is no doubt that Shakespeare's words and word-com- 
binations need constant and careful explanation in order for 
the pupil to seize the thought accurately or even approxi- 
mately. Here, as elsewhere, Coleridge's dictum remains 
true : " In order to get the full sense of a word, we should 
first present to our minds the visual image that forms its pri- 
mary meaning." Now, when, — as in the case of rivals, 
Ham. I. i. 13 ; extravagant, ibid., 154 {Ham. Ex. 36), ^ — 
the word is shown by Shakespeare in its " primary meaning," 
the attention of the pupil is all the more powerfully aroused 
that she has made a mistake about the word, and that the 
correction of iier mistake has involved, not the confession of 
ignorance so distasteful to all, but the addition of frcsli knowl- 
edge, or the recalling of half-forgotten associations from the 
Latin. So, when the meaning of the word as used by Shake- 
speare is transitional, and, though found in modern English, 
is not found in tlie same usage and connection, — as *•' approve 
our eyes," Ham. I. i. 29 ; " the perfume and suppliance of a 
minute," Ham. I. iii. 9, — the pupil becomes more interested. 
She begins, perhaps unconsciously, to take in the notion that 
Shakespeare's characters, who speak this variable language, 

1 These references are to the questions in the Examinations. 



122 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

are to be judged with a freer, less local, more human judg- 
ment than she has been accustomed to use in judging the 
characters of other writers or the people around her. Such 
word-study stimulates and feeds at once the mind and makes 
the pupil curious to go on. And it is an important element 
in opening the mind of the pupil, this finding that the words 
will lead her astray. And, if wisely followed up by the 
teacher, it will quickly so develop as to pass from the close 
observation of words to the close observation of characters. 
But not alone the meanings of words, — their forms, too, need 
to be made plain and their equivalents in modern English 
given; as, "the w^V^/zV-t/ Julius," Ham. I. i. 114 ; so ^'hap- 
pily foreknowing," ibid., 134 ; " the sensible and true avouch " 
{Haifi. Ex. 17). For with each explanation the pupil's men- 
tal horizon grows wider. 

11. But this does not exhaust the interest of the words in 
themselves. They are frequently so full of a particular use 
and meaning of their own that they have evidently been 
chosen by Shakespeare on that account, and can only serve 
fully their purpose of conveying his meaning when themselves 
comprehended. This opens up to the pupil one of the most 
interesting aspects of words, — their function of embalming 
the ideas and habits of a past generation, thus giving little 
photographic views, as it were, of the course of the national life. 
Thus, a new element of interest and weird reality is added 
when we find that ''And like a rat without a tail"" is not 
stuffed into the witch-speech in Macbeth merely for rhyme's 
sake {Mac. Ex. 31). It is doubtful if anything brings so 
visibly before the mind's eye the age, and therefore the 
proper point of view, of Shakespeare as the accurate follow- 
ing-out of these implied views of life, these old popular 
beliefs contained in his picturesque language. They are like 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 23 

illustrations of the thought of which they are themselves a 
part. And tlie effect is heightened if the same expression, in 
the same or even in a different sense, can be traced to the 
f.imiliar life of to-day. In all this part of the subject, — 
words, word-forms, philological content, — the spoken lan- 
guage of common life as distinguished from the written lan- 
guage of literature is full of Shakespeare's ideas to this day.^ 
Now, valuable as this study is as language-study, and as 
illustrating as nothing else can Shakespeare's times and their 
influence upon him, still the most valuable result is the habit 
engendered in the pupil's mind of following Shakespeare, 
and the power it cultivates to do so, to perceive the leaps 
and bounds of his prodigiously active mind. Not knowing 
and knowing the full meaning of his words is like looking at 
a cannonade in the day-time and at night. Each shell moves 
with a train of fire ; you might know it in the day, — you see it 
at night. This philological research must not be carried to 
excess. Within proper limits, like gymnasium exercise, it is 
invigorating, — beyond, it is exhausting. We must, of course, 
discriminate. Let the terms used by the witches in Alac- 
bcth be studied closely, but not so all the witch-terms used 
by Edgar in A7;/^ Z^i?;-/ since the precise effect is needed 
in Macbeth, and the general effect is enough in King Lear. 
The pupil will soon acquire the habit of feeling when it is 
proper for her to think out a metaphor, thereby to determine 
more exactly the limitations and course of Shakespeare's 
thought. As, for instance, the image in 

" Come, seeling night. 
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day," 

1 Especially is this true, sometimes very amusingly so, of the Negro talk 
of Virginia, — their speech being largely the spoken tongue of 200 years ago, 



124 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

in Macbeth III. ii. 46, is quite different, with its implied 
picture of falcon and falconer, to the image of ^^ scaling 
night," for which a beginner would almost certainly mistake 
it. The English of Shakespeare deceives pupils just as 
French deceives the beginners in that language. The words 
look so much like our words nowadays, and yet are so aston- 
ishingly unlike them in meaning. In brief, the word-study 
should be carried to the extent necessary to give the pupil 
the definite and clear conception of the poet's meaning, but 
always be kept subordinate to the conception of that meaning. 
Words are the means, and this study of them is to make the 
pupil comprehend that fact thoroughly. Who, on a bright, 
fresh morning, with the radiant sunliglit on the peaks, has 
failed to feci the gracious beauty of the lines, — 

" Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Hatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 
liissing with golden face the meadows green, 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy " — 

{Sonii. XXXIII.) , and has not felt at the same time the 
beauty of nature enhanced by the bold personification of the 
poet's description ? Not that it is necessary for a pupil or 
anybody else to know with a self-conscious, self-complacent 
knowledge what name the rhetorical people would give this 
use of the word or combination of words ; but she should 
so know it as to be able to feel it as fully as she can feel 
anything. That is the true philological study for Shakes- 
peare pupils. Anything less than that is not enough ; 
anything more is too much. x\s to what constitutes the just 
amount, each teacher must decide for himself; it may vary 
for each class. And the teacher will usually exercise a wiser 
continence in illustration and in requirement in i^roportion 
as he is himself in possession of Shakespeare knowledge. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 25 

To acquire this command of Shakespeare's speech, thought 
i.j nccdfal ; and for thought, time must be given. Hence, in 
my opinion, the advantage for the school-class of placing the 
notes at the end of the volume, — that there must be some time 
colli uincd'xw finding the explanation sought. ]\Iy experience 
as student and teacher has convinced me in a variety of ways 
of the bad results of too much help, and never is it more 
pernicious than when it anticipates the natural action of the 
pupil's mind. While turning over the leaves to find a note, 
the mind may think of a dozen things, and enjoy perhaps the 
extreme satisfaction of having hit upon the true explanation 
by the time the note is reached. Often a lucky guess is so 
plausible that the student turns back to the text before 
lookin:? at the note, believes herself in the rii^ht, and then 
goes to the note for corroboration merely. Such a mental 
habit is what every teacher earnestly desires in his pupils ; 
and foot-notes on the same page certainly do much to 
hinder its growth. After the true student habit has been 
acquired, in whatever way, foot-notes are most useful. It is 
well to use them in reviewing a play already studied in a 
different edition, when aesthetic considerations are under 
discussion and the desire is to move rapidly. 

But, for a class of boys or girls, I hold that the most 
effectual and rapid and profitable method of studying Shake- 
speare is for them to learn one play as thoroughly as their 
teacher can make them do it. Then they can read other 
plays with a profit and a pleasure unknown and unknowable 
without such previous drill and study. 

III. Difficulties consisting in the forms of words have 
been already mentioned ; but they constitute in reality only 
a part, perhaps the least part, of the grammatical impedi- 
ment to our apprehending Shakespeare clearly. There is 



126 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

in him a splendid superiority to what we call grammar 
which entails upon us more or less of close, critical obser- 
vation of his word-order, if we would seize the very thought. 
Thus Lady Macbeth speaks of Macbeth's " flaws and starts" 
as ''impostors to true fear" {Mac. Ex. 28). Here, if 
we understand "to" in its ordinary meaning, we lose en- 
tirely the fine force of its use by Shakespeare, ^Uovipared to 
true fear," and fail to see how subtly Lady Macbeth is try- 
ing to persuade Macbeth that there is no cause for fear, 
that he is not truly "afeard," but merely hysterical and un- 
balanced ; and, failing in that, we fail in part to realize the 
prodigious nerve and force she was herself displaying, 
though vainly, for Macbeth's sake. So, too, a few lines 
farther on, INIacbeth's fine saying, "Ere humane statute 
purged the gentle weal," becomes finer when we see that 
"gentle" means for us "gentled," or "and made it gentle." 
{Mac. Ex. 18 ; Ham. Ex. 29 ; also Mac. Ex. 29.) But for 
the apprehension of such, to us, unwonted powers in our 
noble mother tongue, we must study : worJz, that is the word 
for it. We appreciate Shakespeare, as we do other things : 
when he has cost us something; and he might say to us, 
with the gracious Duncan, — 

' Herein I teach you 

How you shall bid God 'ild me for your pains 

And thank me for your trouble.' 

It is very easy to push this kind of study beyond the neces- 
sities of the case, as beyond the patience of the pupil. But 
so long as they are really learning tangible things and feel 
that they are attaining positive results, they will work and 
think and profit. This sort of grammatical work should be 
applied strictly to matters in hand. Outside things, other 
plays should be noticed only in so far as they furnish quota- 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 12/ 

tions for apposite illustration. Particularly should a teacher 
avoid the pernicious habit of making Shakespeare a stalking- 
horse for addling youngsters' brains about ^^ old English.'''' 
Weariness and disgust will be the result. 

IV. With such preliminary and coincident study, the pupil 
prepares herself for that wider sweep of vision called for by 
the views of life and of tlie ujiiverse expressed or implied by 
the dramatis personae themselves. The habit of mind thus 
acquired enables her to comprehend quickly the notions of 
God, of life, of creation ( Welianschauiing) found in ante- 
protestant times ; and she is ready to sympathize with human- 
ity, no matter as to age, or race, or clime. At the Master's 
bidding, she has learned, literally, to ^/j-locate her imagina- 
tion as to words and constructions, and thence as to the 
ordering of governments, of religions, of the inner life of man 
as well ; and Pagan Lear is no more foreign to her than 
Moorish Othello, Catholic Wolsey, Roman Brutus, or that 
sweet dweller in the island of Nowhere, " admired Miranda." 
When she has understood clearly, once for all, what Claudius 
means by telling Laertes ' that, as the star moves not but in 
his sphere. He could not but by the Queen ' {Ham. IV. 
vii. 15), then the pupil is ready always afterwards to accept 
the Ptolemaic notion of the universe, and to appreciate such 
expressions in the mouths of other characters. The splendid 
beauty of Lorenzo's star-lit rapture to Jessica, — 

"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdcst 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins," 

{M. of Ven. V. i. 60-62), becomes still more exquisite to the 
pupil realizing the fantastic vision of circling spheres before 
his mind's eye as Shakespeare wrote the lines. One feels 
hke straining the soul's ear to catch that majestic sphere- 



128 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

music, mightier, more entrancing even than the song of the 
angel Israfel, — 

" Whose heart-strings are a lute." 

And if modern science has given us more valuable because 
more accurate astronomical notions, we are half inclined 
to be indignant that it lias interfered with our poetry. 

V. Another prolific source of the realization of Shake- 
speare's conception is obtained by suggesting the actor's 
view to the pupil. There is much quickening of sympathy 
in representing to ourselves the look, posture, emphasis of 
the character who speaks. The same words have a totally 
different force according as' they are pronounced ; and it is 
like a revelation to a pupil sometimes to learn that a speech, 
or even a word, was uttered thus and not so. The interest 
of the play is vastly increased by cultivating this habit of 
thinking of each character as a " sure enough " person. And 
it is worth notice that many of those who uphold the mad- 
ness of Hamlet depend, to a very great extent, upon that 
" interpretation of the language of gesture " which Poe says, 
somewhere, is the secret of the dramatic charm of Dickens. 
Hamlet is mad, those critics tell us, because he does or says 
this or that in a "'wild" or "excited" way, or with "uncon- 
trollable fury" ; whence it would seem that he would not be 
mad if he did or said these same things quiedy and in a self- 
controlled way. There is, of course, much liability to wrong 
conception ; but a wrong conception of a character, if strongly 
entertained, is better than none or a milk-and-waterish one. 
Mr. Taine has expressed himself so admirably on this point 
that I quote from him : " Every word pronounced by one of 
his characters enables us to see, besides the idea which it 
contains and the emotion which prompted it, . . . the mood, 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 29 

physical attitude, bearing, look of the man, all instantaneously, 
with a clearness and force approached by no one. . . . We 
hear the roll of those terrible voices ; we see contracted 
features, glowing eyes, palhd faces ; we see the rages, the 
furious resolutions which mount to the brain with the feverish 
blood, and descend to the sharp-strung nerves. This prop- 
erty, possessed by every phrase to exhibit a world of senti- 
ments and forms, comes from the fact that the phrase is 
actually caused by a world of emotions and images. Shake- 
speare when he wrote, felt all that we feel, and much besides. 
A word here and there of Hamlet or Othello would need for 
its explanation three pages of commentaries ; each of the 
half-understood thoughts, which the commentator may have 
discovered, has left its trace in the turn of the phrase, in the 
nature of the metaphor, in the order of the words ; now-a- 
days in pursuing these traces we divine the thoughts." 
(Taine's English Literature, Book II., Chap. IV., p. 316.) 
It is " in pursuing these traces " that we realize most vividly 
the intensity of Shakespeare's humanity and the mighty 
force of his genius, — a genius which could enter so thor- 
oughly into the minutest details of half-formed and fleeting 
emotion and thought without ever losing sight of the true 
outline of the character or of the character's true place in 
the play. Faust complains that he has two souls within his 
breast. We rise from the study of Hamlet with the feeling 
that not two souls merely, but the multitudinous soul of man, 
has played before us afresh the old, unending tragedy of life 
through love and hate up to those portals where ' the rest 
is silence.' 

VI. Now, all this is preliminary work and should lead up 
to the cBstJietic appreciation of Shakespeare's characters ; and 
to that end, real conceptions, right or wrong, are essential. 



I30 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

Let it be distinctly understood : all study of words, of gram- 
matical construction, of views of life peculiar to an age past, 
of bodily posture and gesture, — all are the preparation for 
the study of the characters themselves ; that is, of the play 
itself; that is, of what Mr. Hudson calls the "Shakespeare 
of Shakespeare." If the student does not rise to this view 
of Shakespeare, she had better let Shakespeare alone and go 
at something else. In studying the lives of such men as 
Hamlet or Lear, and of such women as Lady Macbeth or 
Cordelia, it is of the utmost consequence that the attention 
of the pupil be so directed to their deeds and words, their ex- 
pression and demonstration of feeling, — to the things, further, 
which they omit to say or do,' — ^as to make the conception 
of personality as strong as possible. This is not, and need 
not be, any " forcing " process ; nor need the pupil be made 
thereby self-conscious and conceited at her own wonderful 
perspicacity. Such childish superficiality will soon give place 
to deep interest and close observation ; and there will arise 
in young minds, easily impressed and generous of response to 
appeal, that profound disgust for evil and that admiration for 
nobleness which Shakespeare knows so well how to awaken. 
The permanence of such impression will depend on stability 
of character. But the impression will be made. In follow- 
ing out closely the oudines of character, the pupil will soon 
learn to rid herself of the common and false habit of almost 
all young minds with their hasty judgments, — the fashion, 
namely, of looking upon Shakespeare's characters as mere 
types and of expecting them to do the things supposed to 
be characteristic of those typical natures. Children are apt 
to take these one-sided views of men and things, to imagine 
that the person or persons to whom they have attributed 
certain qualities, or the lack of those qualities, feel and are 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 131 

ready to act as they, the children, suppose them obliged to 
feel. And this perverse way of thinking is fostered by their 
periodicals, their cheap novels, their goody-good books. 
There is no school like Shakespeare for disabusing the young 
mhid of these habitual prepossessions. How strong these 
prepossessions may be in older minds as well, is seen in the 
rather stupid stage-villain into whom the actors travesty the 
shrewd, bold King Claudius of the play of Hamlet. A dis- 
criminating study of Shakespeare's characters is not surpassed 
anywhere in its value as teaching the propriety, nay, the 
duty of taking the objective view of one's self, as of other 
people. 

x\nd yet, Shakespeare does make his characters repre- 
sent principles, the clash or harmony of which constitutes 
the external significance of the actors in any particular 
drama. This is in large measure independent of the in- 
ternal significance of the actors to themselves and to us ; 
much as the judge's official existence is objective to the 
man who constitutes, and yet is within himself independent 
of, the judge. And so we have the twofold existence of the 
human soul before the pupil's thought — the soul in^ its 
strong, conscious freedom to determine well or ill and so to 
act; and the same soul launched on the tide of life and 
guided irresistibly by the " great opposeless wills," which 
will force it to admit, with joy or woe, sooner or later, — 

"The wheel is come full circle; I am here." 

Thus advancing from the individual to the principle, the 
pupil must next turn to the whole, — to the result of this 
play and clash of principles and men, — and give herself 
some account of what echo is awakened, what deep within 
her is called upon by the resounding deep within the poet's 



132 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

soul. And whether she reason it out or not, she will hardly 
escape making some response to the impulse upon her of 
that strong spirit's creative breath, ' moving upon the face 
of the waters ' within the depth of her being and bringing 
to light the unknown world there lying hidden. Perhaps 
the answer had best be left vague ; perhaps the soul, es- 
pecially a young soul, had best not give a strict account at 
the bar of the understanding of that which the understanding 
can apprehend but feebly. For the mysteries of the soul 
dragged into the light of the reason are much like those 
wonderful, gelatinous dwellers of the sea when brought into 
the dry atmospheric light, — shapeless, pulpy masses of in- 
anition which were erst such marvels of delicate, waving' 
beauty. 

Whether, then, the individual, the single principle, or the 
whole play be the object of thought, the pupil has, aided by 
her previous training, prepared herself for the rich repast 
before her, and need not 

'Watch the wine flow, by herself but half-tasted; 
Hear the music, and yet miss the tune.' 

Nor need she believe in her heart that she is to conclude 
with Prospero (^Tempest, IV. i. 156) that — 

" We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep," 

■ — whatever may become her conviction after she has reached 
Prospero's age and experience. Rather is she convinced by 
the noble creations of the poet's magic, and in spite of the 
evil ones, — which make indeed, like Caliban, the noble 
more noble by contrast, — that she should cry out with the 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 33 

fresh young heart of J\liranda, worthy daughter of her sire, 
beautiful in her faith, — 

" O, wonder ! 
How many goodly creatures are there here ! 
How beauteous mankind is ! O brave new world, 
That hath such people in't ! " 

Would that all young hearts could be brought so to feel 
and believe, or could be enabled to retain their young hope 
in life ! Especially is it needful in this age when, on the 
one hand, the scientific men (so the theologians say) tell us 
that we are only wonderfully developed animals, — fine, 
strong, but ape-descended, probably simian in soul ; and the 
theologians themselves, on the other hand, tell us that we 
are wicked, are devil's spawn before we are born, and suck 
in sin with our mother's milk. So that too many of us, 
young and old, are prone to look upon the fair face of crea- 
tion, upon the star-lit heavens themselves, and see in them, 
as Carlyle did, only " a sad sight." ^ 

Applying now these principles, if such they can be called, 
my method of work is this : One of the plays in the Claren- 
don Press Series is selected and, after some brief introduc- 
tory matter, the class begins to study. Each pupil reads in 
turn a number of lines, and then is expected to give such 
explanations of the text as are to be found in the notes, sup- 
plemented by her own knowledge. She has pointed out to 
her such other matters also as may be of interest and are 
relevant to the text. These matters may be passing cesthetic 
criticisms upon characters ; suggestions as to Shakespeare's 
style and art ; citations of other authors, in the way of illus- 

1 Cf. Mr. Hudson's Preface to the Harvard Shakespeare, pp. 20,21, which 
I had not seen before writing these Hues. 



134 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

tration, or for comparison of their way of treating the same 
or similar themes ; paraphrases of Shakespeare's language 
into modern English when needful ; grammatical notes ; in 
a word, whatever may be found helpful in stimulating the 
pupil's interest without distracting her attention. In order 
to keep the thread of the story plainly before the eye, it is 
frequently necessary to refer the pupil back, from time to 
time, to the language or actions of the characters as given in 
previous scenes ; especially so when there is any change, 
real or apparent, in the development of the character, — e.g., 
Gertrude in Hamlet; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the 
banquet scene. 

When the play has been finished or when any character 
disappears from the play, — as Polonius in Hamlet, Duncan in 
Macbeth, the Fool in King Lear, — the class have all those 
passages in the play pointed out to them wherein this char- 
acter appears or mention is made of him ; and then, with 
this, Shakespeare's, biography of him before their eyes, they 
are required to write a composition — bane of pupils, most 
useful of teachers' auxiliaries — on this character, without 
other aesthetic assistance or hints than they may have gathered 
from the teacher in the course of their study. This is to be 
their work, and to express their opinions of the man or the 
woman under discussion, and is to show how far they have 
succeeded in retaining their thoughts and impressions con- 
cerning the character, and how far they wish to modify them 
under this review. They are thus compelled to realize what 
they do and do not think ; what they do and do not know; 
in how far the character does or does not meet tlieir ap- 
proval, and why. That is, the pupils are compelled to pass 
judgment upon themselves along with the Shakespeare char- 
acter. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 35 

Here again, there is really but little danger of too con- 
scious a knowing that they know. For, in fact, the conscious- 
ness that a criticism of self is a real part of the composition 
does not occur to the pupils, and yet is none the less felt 
and none the less effective ; and false opinions and wrong 
principles will be self-condemned. When these compo- 
sitions are examined, any errors of judgment can be noted 
by the teacher ; questionable views can be questioned and 
misapprehensions corrected. Further, the teacher can ex- 
press his own opinion more freely, and can read aloud the 
better class of critics or give the substance of their views. 
This should be done only after the pupil has formed and 
expressed an opinion. Thus used, the critics become a 
valuable standard of suggestive comparison and do not serve 
merely as the crude stuff of a dead cram. It is sometimes 
surprising to find how much and how rapidly dull, lieavy 
pupils improve in clearness of expression and, of course, 
clearness of vision, in the composing of a few of these criti- 
cisms ; and how much greater their interest in Shakespeare 
becomes when they once find that an opinion or opinions of 
their own have been entertained by some distinguished critic. 
Nothing so fixes impressions as putting them down in black 
and white ; and therefore nothing is more useful to the 
Shakespeare teacher than this writing, followed by revision 
and comparison. For the pupil, each character success- 
fully outlined is henceforth a distinct acquaintance and no 
longer one of a group. 

Every important character in the play is thus dealt with. 
Not only each character, but particular scenes between 
characters will naturally afterwards become objects of com- 
position and discussion, e.g., the interview between Ham- 
let and Ophelia, or Duncan before Macbeth's castle, — 



136 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

where the character and the occasion are examined in their 
mutual relations ; so, too, for particular scenes in themselves 
and in their relation to the whole play, as the " devil-porter " 
scene in Macbeth. (See Mac. Ex. 50 ; Ham. Ex. 64 and 
67.) And finally, the play itself is examined in the same 
way, as to its pictures of life and civilization and as to its 
ethical aim and value. 

Before finishing this series of writings, but after reading 
through the play once, the pupils have parts assigned them 
and go through it again. This time they read scenes or pages 
as may be convenient, and then the attention is directed to 
the grammatical points. This is really a difficult subject to 
discuss or to teach. It is so easy to do too much, and so 
easy not to do enough. I am not altogether satisfied that 
my method is best. It is this : to assign, as stated, a certain 
part of the text upon which the grammatical references given 
in the index to the play in Abbott's Shake speariaii Grammar 
are to be looked for and studied. From these references 
all are excluded which treat of prosody, accent, lengthening 
and shortening of words and syllables, — versification, in 
a word. Abbott's explanations often need explaining for 
young students ; and yet when made plain, they do very 
much towards making the text clearer and more forcible. 
When it is read subsequently in the light of these explana- 
tions by pupils who take the parts of the various characters, 
the interest is much increased. And profit is nearly always 
in proportion to interest.^ Furthermore, additional oppor- 
tunity is thus given to the pupil for reflection upon the 
development of the characters and upon the progress of the 



1 The " Notes and Questions" on Macbeth given by Abbott at the end 
of his grammar arc suggestive as a guide to the use of the book. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 37 

play and its meaning ; and to the teacher to call attention to 
jDarlicular matters, and to general ones too, which were not 
so intelligibly suggested in the more confined first reading ; 
for then the aim was to get upon the eminence, as it were, in 
order to look around. 

I am disposed to think this separate dealing with the 
grammatical structure of Shakespeare's text is better than 
having it studied along with the word-forms and the philo- 
logical content of the words. For it almost necessitates a 
review of the whole play and the pupil's work on the play ; 
and the value of review is very great and too well known to 
be insisted upon. 

^ The essay-criticism of characters and scenes is kept up 
all the while. And, of course, as each essay is returned and 
criticised, and its subject made more plain to the understand- 
ing, the whole play grows in luminousness and in coherence, 
and the magic of the poet wins its way more and more into 
the minds and hearts of the students. 

It is well at this stage to suggest comparisons with other 
characters in other plays ; for the pupil can now understand 
that the comparison may mean a definite something, know- 
ing one of its terms. If time afford, Hudson or Dowden or 
Gervinus or Taine may be introduced and their criticisijis 
read in class ; for then they profit, whereas before one play 
is studied and learned, they simply confuse, and teach the 
average pupil to be superficial. 

After the i)lay is finished, Dowden's Shakspcre Prii)icr is 
taken up, and Shakespeare, the man, is read about, and some- 
thing more of the play just studied is learned, and its interest 
enlianced. If possible, another play is then read more 
rapidly. Thus it will be seen that perhaps the whole half- 
session may be spent on one play ; and it is time well spent 



138 XLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

if one play be really learned. My Shakespeare Class meets 
three times a week ; when more time can be given it, more 
work can be done. 

All this may seem to smack too much of the pedagogue 
with one idea. Perhaps it does. But my experience has 
been that those in a class who have worked on Shakespeare 
most enjoy him most, and are therefore most apt to profit 
by his teachings. As I have already said elsewhere, work, 
loving and persistent work, is the meaning of such study. 
It is ennobling and self-sustaining, such communion with 
Shakespeare, and through him with other great minds, just 
as similar work in music or painting is ennobling and pro- 
ductive of good taste and good morals. 

And it is not true that this takes too much time for Shake- 
speare and from other things ; and if it does, do let the 
children take time enough to learn something. They spend 
time, because it is " the thing " to do, in acquiring a gibble- 
gabble which they fondly hope will prove to be French on 
the proper occasion, and in toiling over a " Kauderwalsch," 
so-called German. Now, to learn to read both French and 
German is a desirable thing, and to know either or both is 
valuable. But many people believe that the value of such 
real knowledge is often counterbalanced by the tendency 
towards vagueness and unreality, ending in discontent, which 
a foreign medium of thought is apt to generate in young 
minds. A very young lady, able to express her opinions in 
glib French or doubt-suggesting German, is quite prone to 
imagine herself for a time greatly superior to the people 
around her on that account alone, wliile the fact may be that 
she is able merely to show herself foolish at bottom in two 
languages instead of in one. But it will probably take nearly 
twice the time for her to find it out ; for, being word-crammed, 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 39 

she is word-deceived as to herself. Real possession of a 
foreign language tends to make anybody in part a foreigner. 
Our school-girls usually set before them as their aim the 
acquisition of just enough French or German to do them 
the harm of the abuse of those languages, without the real 
benefits of their use. Unless offset by solid training in their 
mother-tongue, these foreigners do much to unfit American 
girls for their daily life with its plain duties. Of all the educa- 
tional shams and affectations, the " modern languages " have 
done probably the most harm to the women of this country. 
To ''modern languages" time immeasurable has been given 
by the generation of American women now under fifty. 
How much of it was time wasted? But nobody was ever 
yet hurt by learning and taking to heart the utterances of 
Shakespeare's great, sound soul. So it would be wise to 
give the rising generation time enough to try, at least, to 
learn something from him.^ 

As a subject for study for young women, Shakespeare is 
peculiarly the best thing that they can study in English 
literature, because he calls forth the best in them by the 
manly soundness of his thought, and because the value of 
contact with true manliness of thought in the development 
of a true womanliness is not to be estimated. And because, 
further, Shakespeare is in an extraordinary degree health- 
fully objective in his effect upon the mind, whereas many, 
perhaps most women have a tendency towards over-refine- 

1 I remember a reply, much to the present point, made by my wise pro- 
fessor of Latin. When it was objected that the English University young 
men spent so much time on Latin, — reading Latin, studying Latin verse, 
and writing Latin odes, — he replied: "Yes; but when they have finished, 
they kiio'M Latin." And it is strikingly characteristic of English statesmen 
that they iiave shown in their work the good effects of having learned in 
youth to /cno7u something. 



140 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

ment of subjectivity — towards putting other people in their 
places instead of putting themselv^es in the places of other 
people. Contact with such sane, large-souled impartiality 
of mind as Shakespeare's is therefore peculiarly beneficial 
in a woman's education. 

The teacher of Shakespeare is probably exposed to more 
temptations and liable to more errors than any other in- 
structor. It is worth while to consider briefly some very 
common errors which have peculiarly harmful influence on 
the pupil studying Shakespeare. The teacher should guard 
against the temptation on liis own part of befogging the 
pupil's mind with comparative readings and emendations 
whicli he may happen to know. It is better to know and 
to think about one thing than to try to think about half-a- 
dozen things. It is therefore better for the pupil to get a 
definite notion about one reading than to know that Shake- 
speare may have written several things instead of tliat one 
thing. This view is the result of that same experience 
which has brought me to the conviction- that expurgated 
texts should alone be used in class work, — a conviction 
based upon observation of the bad effects of the diversion of 
thought otherwise produced ; a conviction, therefore, inde- 
pendent of, though coincident with the moral aspects of the 
teacher's position. And the teacher should guard his pupil 
as well as himself from the habit of trying to improve on the 
text, since it produces neglect of an actual thing for the 
sake of an imaginary thing, — and few habits of mind hurt 
more than that. It cidier 'discourages the student or makes 
her superficial and conceited in an incredibly short time. 
And for the proper study of Shakespeare, reverence of mind 
is a great advantage, be it natural or acquired. That does 
not imply lack of boldness of thought. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. I4I 

As has been suggested elsewhere, the foisting upon Shake- 
speare of any more "Old English" work than may be 
necessary is silly. In this school the effort has been so to 
arrange the English course as to lead from modern English 
back to Shakespeare, and as far as possible from Anglo- 
Saxon down to Shakespeare. But when on Shakespeare, 
the pupils are neither persuaded nor allowed to think that 
they are merely dealing with a branch of middle English 
study, the exercise being for the nonce in Shakespeare. 
Undoubtedly, the, pupil familiar with Anglo-Saxon and with 
dialectic forms of middle English will understand the con- 
fusion of constructions (see Mac. Ex. 13) better than one 
who merely has Abbott's explanation to rely upon. So the 
girl who has read Chaucer will see all the more clearly the 
gcrundial infinitive construction when it occurs. But it is 
enough to understand those usages in Shakespeare's lan- 
guage clearly, without knowing all that can be learned 
about them. 

The crowding of the young mind with a multiplicity of 
ideas, all vague, as is frequently done when one character is 
elaborately compared with another character which is known 
only to the teacher, is a pernicious practice, and one into 
which a teacher is easily betrayed. But it blunts the pupil's 
interest in the character under discussion by giving her the 
hopeless feeling that there is something about it which she 
cannot know until she has read, in the indefinite future, some 
other play. Now Shakespeare does not make any character 
in any play depend upon any comparative notion some- 
where else. I tliink this is true even of such continuous 
characters as King Henry in the two parts of Henry IV., or 
of Prince Hal or Falstaff in the same plays. Unless the out- 
lines of characters have time to arrange themselves, to crys- 



142 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

tallize in the pupil's mind, no definite and exact portrait can 
be retained and no adequate benefit can result fi-om the 
time and labor given to the work. The element of time, in- 
deed, must be allowed and provided for, even in our hot- 
house style of educating, if we wish to accomplish any real 
result beyond barrenness and exhaustion. Time is necessary 
to us all, and to all other things where reproduction is hoped 
for after absorption. And, as I think somebody remarks, 
one of the striking characteristics of the Elizabethan mind 
is this need, of which it was conscioui, for rest — for 
time for reflection — for escape from doing and seeming to 
the privacy and liberty of merely being. Spenser was 
wholly given up to it. Bacon sought opportunity for it 
again and again, and was perhaps half-reconciled to a dis- 
grace which brought quiet with it. Raleigh found it in his 
prison and made noble use of it. And most striking of all 
and least comprehensible to our eager-eyed age, Shakespeare, 
with his splendid powers, with his prolific creativeness, 
seems to have sought during years, possibly from the very 
time of first leaving Stratford, the opportunity of going back 
there and being able to give himself up to a quiet life, to 
contemplation ; if, at least, we can trust to what he did, 
what he did not do, and to the tone of his last '• romance " 
plays, particularly of The Tempest. And the last of the 
Shakespearians, John Milton, deliberately decided from his 
boyhood that his life was to be one of reflection, from 
which only the call of duty diverted him for a time. All of 
which teaches us over again that 

"The gods approve 
The depth and not the tumult of the soul — " 

an admonition which of all people teachers should take 
most to heart. They should see to it lest they keep con- 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 1 43 

tiniially distorting and destroying, by throwing in the pebbles 
of their opinions, the image cast by the genius of Shakespeare 
upon the young soul as upon a placid lake. 

And here I would repeat more emphatically what has 
been said in part already. Do not allow the pupils' minds 
to be hurried unduly into forming opinions about the char- 
acters by reading what Gervinus or somebody else has said. 
They should neither read it nor hear it read too soon. They 
should not read abotit Shakespeare until they have read 
Shakespeare himself and written down their own opinions. 
Of course, they should be guided in forming opinions by 
remarks of the teacher during the reading ; for no method 
of instruction is more fruitful than the incidental and unex- 
pected association of ideas by a skilful teacher. But this 
incidental character of the criticism is its value. Harm is 
done when somebody's opinion is thrust upon the pupil 
while she is elaborating only half-consciously her own. This 
is the meaning of ]\Ir. W. Aldis Wright's protest against 
'' sign-post criticisms," as he calls aesthetic notes, in the 
Preface to his Clarendon Press edition of King Lear 
(p. xiii.) — which title, by the way, seems to have called forth 
unnecessary gall. When the time comes, the cxsthetic criti- 
cism of others is most beneficial to any mind, young or old. 
But in this much taught, much reading, much talking age of 
newspapers and magazines and sham writers and small-eyed 
learning, the poor school-children have a hard struggle at 
best to keep free of superficiality ; and their teachers should 
help them, not do them the cruel wrong of showing them 
how to deceive themselves. Too many will do that in the 
magazine, from the pulpit, in the text-book ; too many of 
whom Hamlet might still say that they have " and many 
more of the same breed that I know the drossy age dotes 



144 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKP:SPEARE. 

on — only got the tune of the time and outward habit of 
encounter ; a kind of } esty collection, which carries them 
through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions ; 
and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out " 
(Act v., So. ii., 1 76-181). 

And Ave teachers ought to bear in mind that common- 
place is sometimes so much better than genius ; for thereby 
we can console ourselves for the violence we do the glowing 
heart within us which makes us yearn to ''electrify" our 
pupils by brilliant displays of our powerful " personal mag- 
netism," whatever that may mean. When pupils say they 
have studied this or that and yet show that they know noth- 
ing about it, oftener it is the fault of the teacher's wrong 
way of working than of the pupils themselves. 

Teachers should be willing for their pupils to begin, as 
they did or ought to have done, at the beginning ; and then 
be willing to wait long enough for results to come in their 
"kindly season." AVe should work soberly and not demand 
presently of the child-mind what we_ feel that we ourselves 
are only acquiring gradually after years of slow work. Most 
of us may read with profit, in more senses than one, what 
Hans Andersen says the moon heard the little child read in 
her corner : — 

" Into the dust with Talent's glory, 

But commonplace is fortune made; 
In truth, 'tis an old, old story, 
Yet daily the piece is played." 

It is certainly wrong to encourage pupils to think they 
can be manufactured into Shakespearians, ''in an eminent 
sense," and all teachers should " read, mark, learn, and in- 
wardly digest " Mr. Hudson's remarks on this subject, in 
his essay on Hoia to Use Shakespeare in Schools. A high 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. I45 

Standard of attainment in Shakespeare should be kept before 
pupils, of course, as possible and desirable ; but they 
should be taught so as to help the girls, not so as to make 
conceit-bags of them ; and they can be helped very greatly. 

The most valuable thing any woman can bring from 
school life to the real daily life is the liabit of good healthy 
reading in the literature of her own land. If she has ac- 
quired that, she has indeed passed from mere instruction to 
that education of which so much stuff is talked, and which 
is an individual, voluntary thing ; it being no more possible 
to cdiieaie boy or girl against his or her will than it is to 
make a horse drink after you have led him to the water. 

If the aim of Shakespeare study be to employ him as a 
text-book in classes of elocution, then certainly the pupils 
ought to be helped as far as possible to understand ade- 
quately the passages to be read, since understanding must 
precede good reading. Otherwise, they will be almost sure 
to succeed in reading Shakespeare in that peculiarly awful 
way so much affected by those declamatory people who give 
'•'marvellous renditions," as the newspapers tell us, but who 
would have made Shakespeare confess that he '•' had liefer 
the town crier spoke his lines," had he ever heard them 
" mouth it " once. Few things attainable by any course of 
instruction, however, are so desirable as the accomplishment 
of expressive, tasteful reading of Shakespeare. For A\ho- 
ever can read Shakespeare well, can read any other English 
author well. 

One other point of great practical importance maybe made. 
Teachers should be very chary of allowing their pupils to be 
diverted to side-issues, to Shakespearianisms in the place of 
Shakespeare himself. Among these may be reckoned the 
chronological order of his plays — the sources whence he 



146 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

drew his materials — the settling of disputed readings — the 
evidences of his private opinions and experiences as found 
in his works — his versification, and of this last more particu- 
larly. All of these things, be it said, are of value, of utmost 
value, for the scholar and the editor of Shakespeare ; but 
from the school-girl in the class-room they should not 
demand either time or attention beyond a very limited 
extent. Among these I include Versification even with the 
fear of Dr. Abbott before me. (See Abbott's SJiakcspearian 
Grammar and the Preface thereto.) Mr. Hudson's experi- 
ence in teaching Shakespeare's verse ^ would be the experience 
of many teachers if their classes were consulted. I do not 
believe that it makes any difference to the ordinary pupil's 
apprehension of a line whether it be metrically right or wrong ; 
and such lore does not belong in the class-room and should 
be kept out of it. I have never yet been able to see any 
good come of making school-girls learn more of Shakespeare's 
versification than that his blank verse is supposed to contain 
ten syllables, an unaccented and an accented syllable being 
joined, and in that order ; and that Shakespeare uses more 
than ten or less than ten syllables as he sees fit, and changes 
the order of their accents as his taste directs. Even if Shake- 
speare's verse be a proper object of school work, there are 
other things too valuable for the time to be so misapplied, 
if not wasted outright. A class had better read half a dozen 
plays instead of spending time trying to make believe that 
they are learning Shakespeare's versification in any one play. 
This paper would hardly accomplish its aim fully without 
some mention of Text-books ; although each teacher must 
decide that matter for himself. I have spoken of Mr. Hud- 

1 Hoiu to Use Shakespeare in Schools, p. xv. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. I47 

son's little volume of essays and of their value ; yet Mr. 
Hudson's method of instruction is not a practicable one, I 
think, for schools, as schools are in this country. He says : 
" I never have had, never will have, any recitations whatever ; 
but only what I call, simply, exe/r/ses, the pupils reading the 
author under my direction, correction, and explanation ; the 
teacher and the taught thus communing in the author's 
pages for the time being." (How to Use Shakespeare in 
Schoo/s, p. X.) Mr. Hudson may be theoretically right as 
to the intrinsic value of most recitation and examination ; 
yet the determination of results, in a real way or in a sham 
way, is a necessity for our schools. Only thus can they 
attain and maintain their standards. And without some 
standard of scholarship, I do not see how an unendowed 
school can honestly support itself. We school-teachers must 
work as we can, not as we would. So, too, while agreeing 
with 'Mv. Hudson in the main, in his '•' protest against Shake- 
speare's being used . . . for carrying on general exercises in 
grammar and philology," I make bold to suggest that only 
sufficient study of this kind can enable the student to realize 
that Shakespeare's " language is the medium, not the object, 
of thought " ; and that without such study, therefore, the 
pupil will be quite sure to learn, not Shakespeare, but the 
teacher's Shakespeare alone ; and that, too, almost in pro- 
portion as the teacher is half-learned and without self-re- 
straint. Nothing but such study, it seems to me, can save 
the pupil from that '•' thrusting himself between the author 
and the reader " on the part of the teacher, which Mr. Hud- 
son strongly deprecates on the part of the editor. (Preface, 
Harvard Shakespeare, p. 17.) This brings us to consider 
the question oV the place for notes in class-room editions of 



148 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Hudson, acting on his experience, 
prints the notes at the foot of the page. Mr. Aldis Wright, 
in the Clare7idon Press Series of plays, puts the notes at the 
end of the play ; so does Mr. W. J. Rolfe in his editions. 
These are all three admirable editions, and the ones generally 
used in our schools. 

For a class beginning the study of Shakespeare, my exper- 
ience has decided me in favor of Mr. Wright's Clarendon 
Press Se?'ies. I prefer tliem, as compared with Rolfe's series, 
because his are really little variorum editions, and such notes 
are apt to bewilder beginners by their frequent over-sugges- 
tiveness ; and because I believe it is injurious to put so 
much tempting aesthetic matter before pupils who should 
make up their minds for themselves. Mr. Rolfe's books 
seem to me most excellent for Shakespeare reading-clubs, 
and, perhaps, for advanced classes. Mr. Hudson's editions 
have the objectionable foot-notes. I speak of a Class of 
beginners. Mr. Hudson's reasons for his decision certainly 
have much force, and they may convince me should I ever 
teach as much as he has done. His reasons apply particu- 
larly to authors whose individual words are to be explained, 
e.g., a learned writer like Milton. But, in Shakespeare, not 
the word alone, usually the word and the whole expression 
of the thought are involved, so that the thought itself is the 
difficulty. To understand thought, we must think ; and to 
think, time is necessary. Now, as I have already suggested 
elsewhere, foot-notes on the same page certainly do 
much to hinder the formation of the proper mental habit, 
and to generate dependence and superficiality. They help 
a sluggish mind to become confirmed in its lazy habits, and 
they prevent the active mind from exercising its powers. 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. I49 

Our book-makers and teachers strangely overlook, it seems 
to mc, the immense value of this element of time, — time 
for reflection. The young student must have it. The older 
students, — men like the three Editors named, saving their 
presence, — can only do without it then, when their asso- 
ciations of ideas, resulting from long habit, enable them to 
make quantity of ideas, or mental space, supply the lack of 
time. The disregard of this plain dictate of common sense 
in other departments of instruction is simply scandalous. 
All sorts of bad books and questionable methods are used 
to deceive parents and children into believing that much has 
been attained because a wicked system of cramming has 
been made to submerge, so to speak, the child's mind. 

But, to continue, there is this advantage in foot-notes, that 
they carry us faster over the ground, thus giving more repeti- 
tion, and thereby both more familiarity and better oppor- 
tunity for comparison. But, on the other hand, the trouble 
is that, quickly learned being quickly forgotten, we carry 
with us, through all the repetition, just those errors to which 
we are most liable, and which time for reflection, and nothing 
else, will rid us of. Thus, we merely read ourselves and our 
errors into Shakespeare a dozen or so times instead of once. 
These considerations seem to me fatal to attaining the great- 
est benefit by foot-notes for pupils be^:!;ininng to study 
Shakespeare. But I use gladly Mr. Hudson's editions in 
my Shakespeare reading, club, or in an advanced class, after 
an introductory study of one or more plays. 

It would, liowevcr, be a glad day for any teacher of Shake- 
speare to expect to do half as raucli good work 011 Shakespeare, 
and half as much good with Shakespeare, as Mr. Hudson 
has already accomplished. 



150 CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 

I would advise any teacher to get the same play in all 
three editions, and then decide for himself. He will surely 
learn something from each edition. 

Dowden's ShaJzspere Primer I find useful ; and x'\bbott's 
Shakespearian Grammar is almost indispensable for a 
teacher, whether he use it as a class-book or not. The 
chapter on Shakespeare in Taine's English Lite?'ature is 
valuable. I do not see that a teacher needs anything more 
in the ordinary class-work, whatever he may study for him- 
self and his own growth. Whoever has a volume of the 
Furness Varioi'uin edition needs little else for tlie play edited. 
The introductory essay on the "Teaching of English," by 
Mr. Hales, in Longer English Poe?ns, is an excellent dis- 
cussion of the subject. 

My fervent wish in giving to my countrywomen these pages 
containing the work of their young sisters, is that more of 
them may be induced to commune habitually with the 
master-spirit of our race ; that those who are already 
spreading his influence may be helped to do so more effec- 
tually ; and that all our study may issue in that true life for 
the individual which brings about the true life for the whole 
people. God keep the homes of America, — the true 
strongholds of her freedom ! 

I would like to extend this paper into a plea for the 
healthful education, the English education, the Shakespeare 
education of American girls, especially the girls of the 
South, upon whom is laid- a burden grievous to be borne. 
I would like to raise my voice, not for that education which 
is sham and debilitating, intellectually and morally, but for 
the schooling which is sound and bracing and full of the 
free spirit of our race, the race of Shakespeare and of 



CLASS-ROOM STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. 15I 

Milton. For our great need throughout our whole country 
is not for women more intellectual, more scienti;^c than they 
are now ; let them be all that too, but not unless they can 
add to it true womanhood, sweet motherhood. It is the 
mothers who make men patriots, and we need more men 
who love their country. 



CORDELIA. 



TO E. A. M. 



*' Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy 
Can buy this unprized precious maid of me." 

Kaig Lear, I. i. 

Within the far recesses of my life there stirred 

A vague harmonious tumult; presently it passed 

Into a rhythmic measure deep and strong; at last 

With echoing murmur sweet, it voiced itself in word 

And sang, while my rapt soul to that melodious tone 

In throbbing transports heark'ning, did live for that alone ; 

"Cordelia, o'er thy lovely kind 

Serene thou reign'st, with queenly grace — 
A queen in soul, a queen in mind. 
All woman is thy heart and face, 

Cordelia. 

Fain would I with true-hearted Kent — 

So dear thy vision is to me — 
In absence, grief and banishment, 

Willi hand and brain still toil for thee, 
Cordelia. 

And fain with thy poor Fool I'd wait 

In pining hope for thy sweet glance; 
But rather would I dare my fate 

And stake all, all, to be thy France, 
Cordelia. 



154 CORDELIA. 

For thou art soul to me and breath, 
Thou mak'st my partial being whole; 

Without thee, what matters life or death — 
For what is life without the soul, 

Cordelia? 

Then, gracious princess, turn, I pray, 

Thy pitying eyes to where I stand; 
Draw near, sweet saint, my faint heart stay 

With balmy touch of thy true hand, 
Cordelia. 

O flower of sweet womanhood I 

Before thee vanish doubt and strife; 

Help me attain to thy pure good; 

Dwell thou with me, my queen, my wife, 
Cordelia." 

The yearning voice grew hush as death, but still there goes 
That deep-drawn cry through all recesses of my life. 
And with vibrations sw^eet and strong : — 
" Cordelia ! wife ! " 

Its music echoes murmur yet, now far, now close; 
And smiling, my rapt sovil to that melodious tone 
In throlibing transports hearkens, and lives for that alone. 

Christmas, i88i. 



GLVN, HE A Til, &^ CO:S. PUBLIC A TIOiVS. 

The Haruard Edition of Shakespeare's Complete 

Jl'or/cs. By IIiiXRV N. HuDSuN, LL.D., Autliur uf the Lijl', Art, and 
Characters of Shakespeare, Editor of School Shakespeare, etc. In 'Jwentv 
Vol II flies ; duodecimo; two plays in each volume; also in 7 'en Volumes 
of four plays each. 

Retail Prices. 



20-vol. edition, cloth . . . $25.00 

half-morocco .... 5500 

half-calf 5500 

tree calf 90.00 



lo-vol. edition, cloth . . . $20.00 

half-morocco .... 40.00 

half-calf 40.00 

tree calf 60.00 



Hudson's "Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare" 
(2 vols.) are uniform in size and binding with The Harvard Edi- 
tion, and are included with it at a little more than the above prices. 

^^ Buyers sJioiild be careful in ordering ?iot to confound the Har- 
vard Shakespeare ivith an Old Edition made in 1851, and sold 
under another name. 

The Harvard Edition has been undertaken and the plan of it 
shaped with a special view to making the Poet's pages pleasant and 
attractive to general readers. 

Within the last thirty years great advances and additions have 
been made in the way of preparation for such a work, and these 
volumes bring the whole matter of Shakespeare up abreast with the 
latest researches. 

"The Edition includes 'The Two Noble Kinsmen,' which will 
be new to most readers of Shakespeare. It was first published in 
1634, and has not generally been included in editions of his works. 
That it was his work, jointly with Fletcher, as was also ' Henry 
VIII.,' it was reserved for our own time to establish, and mainly by 
internal evidence, and it is difficult to read the first scene of the first 
act without saying, with Sidney Walker, 'Ant Shakespearius ant 
diabolus,'' and we are glad that Mr. Hudson gave it place and has 
marked the lines of Fletcher by asterisks." — The Churchman, N.Y. 

The first volume contains "the Burbage portrait," and a life of 
the Poet. A history of each play is given in its appropriate volume. 

The plays are arranged in three distinct series : Comedies. His- 
tories, and Tragedies ; and the plays of each series presented, as 
nearly as may be, in the chronological order of the writing. 



, ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



An obvious merit of this edition is, that each volume has two 
sets of notes ; one mainly devoted to explaining the text, and placed 
at the foot of the page ; the other mostly occupied with matters of 
textual comment and criticism, and printed at the end of each play. 
The edition is thus admirably suited to the uses both of the general 
reader and of the special student. General readers prefer to have 
explanations directly before them ; and in at least nine cases out of 
ten they will pass over an obscure word or phrase or allusion with- 
out understanding it, rather than look up the explanation in another 
volume or another part of the same volume. Often, too, in case the 
explanation be not directly at hand, they will go elsewhere in quest 
of it, and then find, after all, that the editor has left the matter 
unexplained ; whereas, with foot-notes they will see at once how 
the matter stands, and will be spared the labour and vexation of a 
fruitless search. 

The foot-notes supply such and so much of explanatory comment 
as may be required by people who read Shakespeare, not to learn 
philology or the technicalities of the scholiast, but to learn Shake- 
speare himself; to take in his thought, to taste his wisdom, and to 
feel his beauty. 

B^^ Send postal for Special Circular giving fuller infor- 
mation. 

How this edition is regarded by Our Most Eminent Sliake- 
spearians, may be judged from the following., which we are permitted 
to publish. Are these reviews not good evidence that this is to be 
''The Standard American Edition of Shakespeare?" 



J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, the 

Shakespearian, HoUlngbury Copse, 
Brighton, England: Your kind trans- 
mission of Mr. Hudson's edition of 
Shakespeare has given me the great- 
est treat that I have had for many 
a day, and I can hardly express how 
much pleasure it affords me to possess 
so admirable a work. The prefaces 
are written with such exceptional abil- 
ity and knowledge, while the division 
of the excellent notes into two sets is a 



splendid arrangement that alone would 
give a character to the work. There 
are of course numerous critical points 
on which other writers (including my- 
self) may differ from Mr. Hudson, as 
well as editions more adapted for 
specialists, but I cannot imagine one 
more suitable for the public at large, 
and I trust that you will allow me to 
congratulate you heartily on its pro- 
duction. {Feb. 7, 1882.) 



GLViV, HEATH, d- CO:S PUBLICATIONS. 



Hudson's Life, Art, and Characters of Shake- 

spcare (Revised Edition, 1 882). By Hknry N. Hudson, LL.D., Editor 
of " The Harvard Shakespeare,^'' ^^ Expurgated School Shakespeare^'' etc. 
In 2 vols. l2nio. 969 pages. Uniform in size witli "The H.-VRVAliD 
ShakesI'EAKE,'' and matches it in the following bindings : — 

Cloth Retail Price, $4.00 per set. 

Half-calf .... 80Q 

Half-morocco »< «< g qq .» 

Tree calf >.<.>.<. jj.oo " 



These two volumes contain: — 



The Life of Shakes pea fe. 

An Llistorical Sketch of the Origin and Groivth of the Drama 

in Llngland, discussing under this head Mh-acle-Plays, 

Moral- Plays, and Comedy and Tragedy. 
SJiakespeare's Contemporaries . 
Shakespeare's Art, discussing under this head, Nature and 

Use of Art, Principles of Art, Dramatic Composition, 

Characterization, Humour, Style, Moral Spirit. 
Shakespeare's Characters, containing critical discourses on 

twenty-live of the Plays. 



B. P. Whipple, Boston: In the 
analysis of Shakt^speare's characters 
Mr. Hudson puts forth all his force and 
subtlety of thought. He almost forgets 
that they are not actual beings, how- 
ever much they may be " real " beings. 
Shakespeare's characters have so taken 
real existence in his mind, that he 
unconsciously speaks of them as one 
speaks of persons he daily meets. This 
is the charm of his criiicisms. His 
great object is to educate people into a 
solid knowledge of Shakepeaie as well 
as to quicken their love for him ; and, 
in this educational purpose, he aims to 
delight the readers he instructs. 

H. H. Furness, the Shakespearian: 
I cannot refrain from recording my 
thorough admiration for Mr. Hudson's 



aesthetic criticisms. No Shakespeare 
student can afford to overlook them. 

London Athenseum : They de- 
serve to find a place in every library 
devoted to Shakespeare, to editions 
of his works, to his biography, or to 
the works of commentators. 

Hon. G. S. Hillard: When any 
one differs from Mr. Hudson's conclu- 
sions, it behooves him to examine well 
the grounds of his dissent. We can- 
not read anywhere a dozen pages of 
these volumes without admitting that 
we are conversing with a thinker, and 
not merely a scholar. His views, be 
they deemed right or wrong, sound or 
unsound, are unborrowed. Tiiey are 
coined in his own mint, and bear his 
image and superscription. 



ENGLISH LITER A TURE. 



Hudson's School Shakespeare. 

Revised and Enlarged Editions of twenty-three Plays, printed from 
new electrotype plates. Carefully expurgated for use in vSchools, 
Clubs, and Eaniilies, with Explanatory Notes at the bottom of the page, 
and Critical Notes at the end of each volume. By H. N. Hudson, 
LL.D., late Professor of English Literature in Boston University, Edi- 
tor of " 77ie Harvard Shakespeare,^^ and, for more than thirty years, 
a Teacher of Shakespeare in the Schools. One play in each volume. 
Square i6mo. Varying in size from 128-253 pages. Mailing Price 
of each, Cloth, 60 cents; Paper, 45 cents. Introduction Price, Cloth, 
45 cents; Paper, 2,2) cents. Exchange, Cloth, 38 cents; Paper, 26 cents. 

That Dr. Hudson has unusual qualifications for annotating a 
School Shakespeare will appear from the opinions of Shakespear- 
ians, Professors of English Literature, and Editors, found on pages 
7-1 1 of this Catalogue, from which we quote: — 

^'He is a first -7^ ate teacher ^ 
'■'His style is fresh, original, and pungent. """^ 
^'■His notes are free from pedantry and dulness ^ 
'■'He has nobility of purpose and purity of hea?^t ^ 
"//t' Jceeps his readers on the qui v'wt from first to last.'''' 
'■'He eliminates gross language witJwut marriiig the plot.'''' 
'■'He gives results without annoying students with processes.''"' 
'■'■He never forgets tJiat he is the Editor and not the Author.'''' 
'■'■His insight is fully equal to the best English or German critics.'''' 
"■He justifies the saying that it requires genius to appreciate and 
interpret genius . " 

"He has so caught the very spirit of his master that he intuitively 
uiakes the best cJioice of disputed texts and throws clearest light on 
obscure passages.'''' 

ET^ See Editor'' s English in Schools {described on page 2^^ for 
a full account of his methods of teaching Shakespeare and other 
Eiiglish Classics. 

Each Play is introduced by a discussion of its history, the source 
of the plot, the political situation, a critical estimate of the char- 
acters, and general characteristics, with much other matter invalu- 
able to the student. These introductory essays are transcripts 
from the Editor's ''Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare,^'' and 
contain much valuable matter not found in any other school edition. 



G/XA\ I/EAT /I, d^ CO.\S PUBLICATIONS. 

The notes are the same as in ''TJic Harvard Rditioii'''' ; also the 
text, except that it is scrupulously and cleanly expurgated. 

The expurgations consist in the bare omission of such lines and 
expressions as the Editor has always deemed it necessaiy to omit in 
class. The expurgations do not in any case reach so far as to 
impair in the least either the delineation of character or the dramatic 
action. On the other hand, no matter is retained not fairly pro- 
nounceable in any class, however composed. 

In speaking of Mr. Hudson's fitness for expurgating Shakespeare, 
and of the result of his work in this direction, the keen critic, Mr. 
Edwin P. Whipple, says : "-We believe that only he who is competent 
to comprehend the wonderful genius of the wor^Vs greatest mind, is 
a fit person to remove frojn Shakespeare'' s plays those passages and 
scenes which offend modern notions of propriety. Mr. Hudson has 
done this delicate task with incomparable tact and felicity . The beauty, 
grandeur, sublimity, wit, humor, and pathos of Shakespeare are 
preserved, and nothing is otnitted that is really essential to the com- 
prehension of SJiakcspcare''s genius as the greatest poet and dramatist 
of the world.'''' 

The Editor uses the plan of foot-notes instead of massing the 
annotation all together at the end of the play, because ample experi- 
ence has assured him, beyond all peradventure, that whatever of 
explanation young students need of Shakespeare's text — and they 
certainly need a good deal — is much better every way when placed 
directly under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; and because 
•at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an obscure 
word or phrase without understanding it, rather than stay to look up 
the explanation in another part of the volume. 

Recent editors of Greek and Latin Classics are putting their 
annotations on the same page with the text. The strong reasons 
given for thus placing their notes are much stronger reasons when 
applied to similar annotations of any classic in the vernacular. 

In the amount of annotation, the Editor has been mainly guided 
by the results of his own experience in teaching; aiming to give so 
many and such notes as he has found needful or conducive to a full 
and clear understanding of the Poefs thought. He has wished to 
avoid distracting or diverting the student's attention overmuch from 
the special subject-matter of the Poefs scenes. 



Books on English Literature. 



kmOLD : 
OAE.PENTER 

HAREISOIT: 
GAEYETT : 
HUDSON: 



n 



LOUNSBUEY 
EOLPE : 
SPEAaUE : 



Intro. 
Price. 

Guide to English History $ .20 

English Literature ........ 1.20 

Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Eeader ... .60 

English of the XlVth Century -.90 

Beowulf 40 

Translation of Beowulf 1.00 

Harvard Shakespeare 25.00 

Life, Art, and Oharacters of Shakespeare . 4.00 

School Shakespeare . 45 

Endish in Schools 25 

Three-Volume Shakespeare ... per vol. 1.20 
Expurgated Family Shakespeare .... 16.00 

Text-Book of Poetry 1.20 

Text-Book of Prose 1.20 

Pamphlet Selections, Prose and Poetry . . .24 

Classical English Eeader 90 

Chaucer's Parlament of Ponies 40 

Craik's English of Shakespeare 90 

Milton's Paradise Lost and Lycidas ... .45 
Selections from Irving ....... .32 



Copies sent to Teachers for Examination, imth a vieio to 
/^ Introduction, on receipt of Introduction Price. 

GINN, HEATH & CO., Publishers. 

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